Global Batwa Outreach
Supporting Viability for a Population On the Brink
Location: Kabale District, Uganda
Global Batwa Outreach (GBO): Grantee in 2014 and 2015
GBO is dedicated to revitalizing the marginalized and impoverished Batwa, a pygmy group indigenous to central Africa. Driven from their centuries-old homeland in the Bwindi and Echuya forests of Uganda in 1991 when those areas were converted to national parks and preserves for a threatened gorilla population, these people found themselves landless and homeless. Living as squatters, Batwa quickly ended up among the poorest people in Uganda.
Since their expulsion, Batwa find themselves at the mercy of a community that shuns them because of their pygmy ancestry. Many were reduced to begging, and are diseased, illiterate, and stigmatized. Infant mortality is high among a population with a life expectancy of
GBO was established in 2008 to address the problems facing the Batwa and help them become self-sufficient. Projects help the community experience economic empowerment and thrive; projects have included bee-keeping, livestock rearing, and small plot gardening. With help from outside organizations, GBO runs a tuition-free primary school for several hundred students and operates an urgent-need community health center (the Good Grace Medical Center).
For more information,
GRANT SUMMARY AND PURPOSE
2014: $20,000 to purchase medical equipment and supplies for a birthing ward at the Medical Center; monies also support the salaries and expenses of two midwives plus a lab technician. Staff also provide postnatal care and safe family planning instruction.
2015: $25,000 to add 21 beds to the 9-bed birthing center that was outfitted in 2014.
IMPACT
Reductions in both mother and child mortality rates through the birthing center and use of medical supplies that ensure safer pregnancies and deliveries. Referrals for complicated cases as well.