Taking care of Kibaale’s mothers is Nakaiza’s passion
Mar 15, 2011
YOU wouldn’t resist the temptation to think 45-year-old Flossy Nakaiza is the most known person in Kibaale district.
By Nigel Nassar
YOU wouldn’t resist the temptation to think 45-year-old Flossy Nakaiza is the most known person in Kibaale district.
As we take a walk through Kibaale town and villages with her, we are stopped several times – women, men and kids all wanting a piece of her.
If it is not a woman with an abusive husband unleashing her problems unto her, it is a man whose wife has an itching on her breast and is seeking solutions. Several are just saying hi.
That’s Nakaiza for you, a woman who has taken it upon herself to voluntarily dispense knowledge to not only the women of Kibaale but also their husbands. And she does it on foot, traversing the 241 villages in her area of operation – Buyanja County – once in a while using her husband’s bicycle when it is not in use.
“Woman, why don’t your employers buy you at least a motorcycle? I can’t believe you are still visiting your women on foot,†says a woman we meet on the way.
What this woman does not understand is that Nakaiza is a volunteer with no such luxury. Besides, a motorcycle would need fuel, yet her earnings are in form of occasional tips from some people who appreciate her work. Her means of subsistence is entirely tilling her land.
At age nine, little Nakaiza keenly watched her mother Teddy Nakitto help pregnant women deliver.
“My mother was a traditional birth assistant, so I occasionally helped her with little errands, things like boiling water, holding onto the shoal in wait for the baby, the like,†recalls Nakaiza.
Seeing her mother make many friends from helping women, Nakaiza promised herself to do something for women when she finished school.
Unfortunately, she got pregnant a few months to sitting her UCE exams, so she dropped out and got married to the father of the pregnancy, with whom she now has five children, aged between five and 22.
“Though I dropped out, I am glad I had already learnt English.â€
It is her comprehension of the Queen’s language that in 1988 pushed her to join Taskforce of Women Against AIDS, an NGO that trained her in HIV counselling, with inclination to women. She would thereafter start her foot-soldiering career.
She traversed villages on foot counseling women about prevention, positive-living, testing for HIV and encouraging condom use to avoid unplanned pregnancies.
Along the way, she became a person of interest to other NGOs starting health-related projects in the district. When Save the Children and Malaria Consortium went to Kibaale, Nakaiza was one of the women attending training for their health activities, and then helping run their projects.
When some local humanitarians in 2003 started Community Development and Empowerment of People living with HIV/AIDS (CDEPA), Nakaiza was enlisted as a volunteer to give hope to the victims among other services that involved her personally picking up ARVs for those who did not yet have confidence to collect them in person.
But it was the advent of the Infectious Diseases Institute to Kibaale in 2009 that fully positioned her as a woman whose responsibility is women, mothers and their health.
At the institute, which shares the same premises as Kibaale Health Centre IV, Nakaiza has a timetable she adheres to as their AIDS community volunteer and counsellor for mothers at the health centre. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, Nakaiza facilitates counselling and health talks to HIV-positive mothers, HIV-positive expectant mothers and women who are expecting and are not infected. She teaches them prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT), nutrition, family planning, its role in HIV prevention, dispelling myths on family planning, malaria prevention, its dangers to pregnant mothers, immunisation, hygiene, water and sanitation, name it.
“I met Nakaiza in 2008 after losing my baby. She encouraged me to test for HIV and I found myself infected and started taking ARVs. Since then, she has been visiting me to see how I am adhering to medication. Now I have a newborn who, through Nakaiza’s PMTCT teachings, is not infected. She was also there for me when I got complications after giving birth,†says Elizabeth Naluyima, a housewife, who adds that Nakaiza never misses a teaching session, and goes the extra mile to walk distances checking on women’s progress.
Anne-Mary Mpaka, a 31-year-old mother of three, says Nakaiza went to her seven years ago when she was pregnant with her first child.
“The teaching she gave me inspired me so much that I ended up joining her; now I am her colleague at the institute and health centre IV. We are a team of nine, four of us female, but, trust me, Nakaiza outshines us.â€
Nakaiza also takes the talk down to the communities and churches. Pastor Joseph Kagwa, CDEPA’s spiritual counsellor and district councillor-elect, describes Nakaiza as a woman who aims at saving the district’s women with relentlessness, so much so that she goes to his church: World Redeemed Evangelism Church – asks for a microphone and talks to women about finding out their HIV status, good feeding and safe motherhood.
“Nakaiza is surprising. You might leave her at the health centre encouraging women and teenage girls to attend antenatal care regularly and you think that is all for her day. Later-on you find her in some village with a small group of women encouraging them to go deliver in hospitals and shun traditional birth attendants even though her mother was one,†says Pastor Kagwa.
In a nutshell, the expertise Nakaiza has accumulated over the years has made her an opinion leader in health matters, a woman whose name you cannot miss in Kibaale’s health circles – so much so that some refer to her as doctor. Others call her teacher. Many just endear her by the pet name Akiiki, a symbol of respect among the Banyoro.
But whatever she is called, Nakaiza comes off as the district’s answer to maternal health, a paragon of virtue, a caretaker and mother without whom many of Kibaale’s mothers and women would be vulnerable. And she does it with passion.
With a district having an infant mortality rate of 122 out of 1000 live births, maternal mortality of 550 out of 100,000, an HIV prevalence rate of 6.2% and a high fertility rate of 7.8 children per woman due to low family planning awareness among others, Nakaiza is just the woman Kibaale needs.
YOU wouldn’t resist the temptation to think 45-year-old Flossy Nakaiza is the most known person in Kibaale district.
As we take a walk through Kibaale town and villages with her, we are stopped several times – women, men and kids all wanting a piece of her.
If it is not a woman with an abusive husband unleashing her problems unto her, it is a man whose wife has an itching on her breast and is seeking solutions. Several are just saying hi.
That’s Nakaiza for you, a woman who has taken it upon herself to voluntarily dispense knowledge to not only the women of Kibaale but also their husbands. And she does it on foot, traversing the 241 villages in her area of operation – Buyanja County – once in a while using her husband’s bicycle when it is not in use.
“Woman, why don’t your employers buy you at least a motorcycle? I can’t believe you are still visiting your women on foot,†says a woman we meet on the way.
What this woman does not understand is that Nakaiza is a volunteer with no such luxury. Besides, a motorcycle would need fuel, yet her earnings are in form of occasional tips from some people who appreciate her work. Her means of subsistence is entirely tilling her land.
At age nine, little Nakaiza keenly watched her mother Teddy Nakitto help pregnant women deliver.
“My mother was a traditional birth assistant, so I occasionally helped her with little errands, things like boiling water, holding onto the shoal in wait for the baby, the like,†recalls Nakaiza.
Seeing her mother make many friends from helping women, Nakaiza promised herself to do something for women when she finished school.
Unfortunately, she got pregnant a few months to sitting her UCE exams, so she dropped out and got married to the father of the pregnancy, with whom she now has five children, aged between five and 22.
“Though I dropped out, I am glad I had already learnt English.â€
It is her comprehension of the Queen’s language that in 1988 pushed her to join Taskforce of Women Against AIDS, an NGO that trained her in HIV counselling, with inclination to women. She would thereafter start her foot-soldiering career.
She traversed villages on foot counseling women about prevention, positive-living, testing for HIV and encouraging condom use to avoid unplanned pregnancies.
Along the way, she became a person of interest to other NGOs starting health-related projects in the district. When Save the Children and Malaria Consortium went to Kibaale, Nakaiza was one of the women attending training for their health activities, and then helping run their projects.
When some local humanitarians in 2003 started Community Development and Empowerment of People living with HIV/AIDS (CDEPA), Nakaiza was enlisted as a volunteer to give hope to the victims among other services that involved her personally picking up ARVs for those who did not yet have confidence to collect them in person.
But it was the advent of the Infectious Diseases Institute to Kibaale in 2009 that fully positioned her as a woman whose responsibility is women, mothers and their health.
At the institute, which shares the same premises as Kibaale Health Centre IV, Nakaiza has a timetable she adheres to as their AIDS community volunteer and counsellor for mothers at the health centre. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, Nakaiza facilitates counselling and health talks to HIV-positive mothers, HIV-positive expectant mothers and women who are expecting and are not infected. She teaches them prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT), nutrition, family planning, its role in HIV prevention, dispelling myths on family planning, malaria prevention, its dangers to pregnant mothers, immunisation, hygiene, water and sanitation, name it.
“I met Nakaiza in 2008 after losing my baby. She encouraged me to test for HIV and I found myself infected and started taking ARVs. Since then, she has been visiting me to see how I am adhering to medication. Now I have a newborn who, through Nakaiza’s PMTCT teachings, is not infected. She was also there for me when I got complications after giving birth,†says Elizabeth Naluyima, a housewife, who adds that Nakaiza never misses a teaching session, and goes the extra mile to walk distances checking on women’s progress.
Anne-Mary Mpaka, a 31-year-old mother of three, says Nakaiza went to her seven years ago when she was pregnant with her first child.
“The teaching she gave me inspired me so much that I ended up joining her; now I am her colleague at the institute and health centre IV. We are a team of nine, four of us female, but, trust me, Nakaiza outshines us.â€
Nakaiza also takes the talk down to the communities and churches. Pastor Joseph Kagwa, CDEPA’s spiritual counsellor and district councillor-elect, describes Nakaiza as a woman who aims at saving the district’s women with relentlessness, so much so that she goes to his church: World Redeemed Evangelism Church – asks for a microphone and talks to women about finding out their HIV status, good feeding and safe motherhood.
“Nakaiza is surprising. You might leave her at the health centre encouraging women and teenage girls to attend antenatal care regularly and you think that is all for her day. Later-on you find her in some village with a small group of women encouraging them to go deliver in hospitals and shun traditional birth attendants even though her mother was one,†says Pastor Kagwa.
In a nutshell, the expertise Nakaiza has accumulated over the years has made her an opinion leader in health matters, a woman whose name you cannot miss in Kibaale’s health circles – so much so that some refer to her as doctor. Others call her teacher. Many just endear her by the pet name Akiiki, a symbol of respect among the Banyoro.
But whatever she is called, Nakaiza comes off as the district’s answer to maternal health, a paragon of virtue, a caretaker and mother without whom many of Kibaale’s mothers and women would be vulnerable. And she does it with passion.
With a district having an infant mortality rate of 122 out of 1000 live births, maternal mortality of 550 out of 100,000, an HIV prevalence rate of 6.2% and a high fertility rate of 7.8 children per woman due to low family planning awareness among others, Nakaiza is just the woman Kibaale needs.