‘This has certainly been a different Christmas for me, being currently based far away from home in Kampala, Uganda.
I arrived here in early December for a two-month volunteering stint with a charity that is very close to my heart, Hospice Africa Uganda (HAU).
Instead of the usual frantic build-up to Christmas, with too much socialising, last-minute shopping, and the stresses of trying to cook the perfect Christmas dinner for a big gang – all in the cold, wet weather – this has been the most relaxed Christmas I have ever experienced (even though I miss my adult children Stephen and Catherine, my mother Kitty in Goresbridge and all my siblings).
Andrew is 11 and was thrilled to receive one of Miriam Donohoe’s Santa lollies
You would hardly know it was Christmas in Kampala, apart from the odd Christmas tree and festive tune blaring from a radio here and there. The commercial frenzy and over shopping that is part of Christmas at home doesn’t exist here. And an added bonus is the 28 degrees Celsius sunny weather!
I am staying in the home of the HAU founder, Dr Anne Merriman. She has three lovely women working for her in what is a busy household which has a stream of overseas visitors and hospice volunteers constantly coming through. Between them the girls have five children aged from 22 down to 8.
I asked the 8-year-old, Frankie, before Christmas what Santa was bringing her. She had no long list. In fact, she had no list at all. She told me that Santa doesn’t come. “But that’s probably because there are no chimneys on houses in Uganda” she explained matter of factly.
I was really struck by the difference between Frankies expectations of Christmas, and that of an 8-year-old in Ireland.
From my first visit to Uganda in 2016 I was smitten. As a journalist and communications consultant, I had travelled to most other continents during my career – but I had never been to Africa before, and it was a huge culture shock.
But I found it all mesmerising — the distinctive sweet smells, the dusty roads, the gentle people, the chaotic traffic and the massive poverty. What was to be a two-week visit to support HAU with communications and fundraising stretched to almost a year. I simply didn’t catch that return flight home after my initial two weeks were up.
I had met the founder of Hospice Africa Uganda, Nobel Peace Prize nominee Dr Anne Merriman, in Dublin at the end of 2015 and she asked me to visit the charity for a few weeks to give communications guidance and advice.
It sounds like a cliché, but those ten months in Uganda were life-changing and influenced the next phase of my life working in the humanitarian and development sector.
I have returned to Uganda most years since 2016, Covid withstanding. Dr Anne (as we call her) is frailer now, aged 88, and her hair has turned snow white. But her heart and spirit are as strong as ever. She is in a wheelchair after recently breaking her leg, but she is still very much the HAU figurehead and powerhouse.
What draws me to HAU is the patients. Care is delivered in people’s homes, and the distinctive HAU vehicles have been a familiar sight in Kampala for the past three decades, moving around the chaotic city daily to reach the critically sick and dying.
I accompany the hospice team on patient visits typically two days a week and document the cases (with the consent of the patients and their families) for the HAU website and social media accounts. I also work to get media profile for HAU’s work to support fundraising.
On this trip I am also planning a big fundraising event for HAU in Kampala for mid-2024 and am helping to develop relationships with businesses in the hope of getting more corporate support for HAU’s work.
In Uganda the majority of people with cancer will not get the treatment they need – surgery, chemotherapy or radiotherapy – due to the cost or the lack of services. So cancers are usually very advanced when cases are referred to HAU, and at that stage it is not about cure but about providing pain relief to the patient to ensure they have a pain-free, and peaceful end of life.
The vast majority of patients HAU visit are living in terrible conditions, with no electricity or running water or even enough food – and the patients are often lying on a mattress on a dirty floor.
But when they see the hospice team arrive, no matter how ill they are, the patients’ eyes light up because they know they will be pain-free for days to come. I find it truly humbling to see the impact of the work of hospice on some of the poorest of the poor.
I also take a special interest in the young HAU patients who come into hospice for day care. When I was here in 2016, I fundraised to get a room in hospice done up for the children, and painted with murals. It has been a great resource ever since.
On this visit I attended the hospice patients Christmas party on December 12. Hospice teams transported patients who were well enough to the hospice centre for a wonderful get together. On that day I met a lovely 11-year-old boy, Andrew, who has a large tumour growing from his left eye (see pictured). I had brought lots of Santa lollypops with me from Ireland for the kids, and he was thrilled to receive one.
Andrew’s parents can’t afford radiotherapy which might shrink the tumour and give Andrew a better quality of life. So, thanks to some very generous donations to HAU from people in Kilkenny, we are investigating the cost of radiotherapy sessions for Andrew.
There are thousands and thousands of Andrews in Uganda, and it is impossible to support them all.
One day in 2016 I got very upset that HAU was only able to reach so many seriously ill cancer patients in a week. Dr Anne said something to me that I have never forgotten.
“You won’t change the world. But if you can change the life of one person you will change their world.”
And its so true. My biggest wish for 2024 is that Andrew gets the treatment he needs – and that HAU continues to get the funds and support necessary to allow it to continue making a difference to the end of lives of the critically ill.
P.S. This time I do intend to catch that return flight home in February!
* Hospice Africa Ireland is a registered Charity which fundraises for Hospice Africa Uganda. If you would like to support their work, you can donate here: https://donorbox.org/hospice- africa-ireland
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Publish date : 2023-12-25 08:00:00
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