Today we were put to work at Naguru. Naguru is a Teen Health Center that provides both sexual education and medical treatments for sexually transmitted diseases (HIV/AIDS, Syphilis) , and other common diseases found in Uganda such as malaria. There is also a family planning wing, and and counseling available to all teens. This center is pioneer in every way, and it was truly amazing to witness all the goings on within Naguru. Teens can come and obtain birth control, condoms, emergency contraception, and every type of protection available. Also, for those teens who do get pregnant there is counseling and parenting sessions where the appropriate prenatal vitamins can be obtained.
Naguru caters to every need of a teenager in Uganda as far as we were able to see. We were not able to interact with the teens at the clinic but were able to see the types of material used to educate them in sexual matters. In this country, sex can be a matter of life and death, and as a result no issue is too taboo to address in sexual education. This is made evident by the bluntness and graphic quality of all educational material.
The reason we were unable to interact with any of the teens in the center is because we were put to work doing something, though much less interesting, much more useful to the overall functioning of Naguru. We were asked to sort thousands of pills (what will stalk to the clinic for 4 months) into different baggies, in different doses. This took us about 3 and a half hours and we barely had finished half of the pills. This tedious labour to us sometimes takes weeks to complete, as only one nurse or doctor (whoever has a free hand..or minute) to divide and distribute.
However the gratitude of the staff at Naguru was unthinkable. Something that to us can seem so little a task, will help them tend to so many more teens a day.
After this long day of pill sorting..we will definitely be having dreams of counting pills for days to come.
- Yara Sifri
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