Author: Redazione Cuamm

Health authorities in Tete province gathered for the III Coordinating Council on Strenghtening Community Systems for Universal Health Coverage, a recurring institutional appointment to consolidate relations with international partners and enhance the results of a synergetic work. This year the Council was dedicated to health promotion at community level and the authorities recognized CUAMM’s commitment to collaborating with local actors. The recognition is not one-of-a-kind: in fact, CUAMM had already been awarded in 2019 for its commitment to supporting the provincial health system.

“A recognition that, once again, fills us with joy and motivates us to continue our commitment in this province,” said Giorgia Gelfi – Cuamm Country Representative in Mozambique after receiving the certificate of recognition from the health authorities in Tete.

Collaboration with communities and local actors is fundamental in achieving health objectives. Awareness-raising and health education on the ground are a pivotal element in the implementation of lasting and effective interventions, for which the involvement of community agents is fundamental. In the districts of Moatize and Angónia, and in the city of Tete, Cuamm has long been working in training young activists, key figures in the community and in the SAAJ – Servícios Amigos dos Adolescentes e dos Jovens which are youth counselling centres located in the health centres.

Community agents bridge local populations and health services by carrying out various activities: they inform about the basic and specialist services available in the health centres; they organise awareness-raising activities on prevention and health education issues; they animate the SAAJs, where they provide individual and collective counselling for young people; they convince their peers to test and not to be afraid of the diagnosis and are ready to support them during their treatment. Working within the SAAJs and in the villages, the community agents ensure continuity of care: they keep track of patients undergoing treatment and go to the field in case of missed appointments. Either a call or a home visit is often essential to bring faltosos– patients who shirk antiretroviral therapy – back to treatment.

“I am very excited to see this diploma,” says Emília Marcelo Cunamisana, a 28-year-old Cuamm activist. As an activist, receiving this recognition is an incentive to continue doing my part because it demonstrates the effectiveness of our role, the importance of dialogue with the population and therefore the value of collaboration between Cuamm and the communities”.

Operating in Mozambique since 1978, Cuamm arrived in Tete in 2017 with a programme on sexual and reproductive health in 3 districts of the province, for a target population of around 130,000 adolescents. Since then, the commitment has never stopped. In the last three years alone, thanks to the work of the community agents involved, 135,000 visits and 96,000 HIV tests have been carried out within 10 target SAAJs, while 66,000 young people have been educated and sensitized on sexual and reproductive health issues thanks to awareness-raising activities in the area. An intervention also made possible thanks to the support and contribution of the Government of Flanders.

We gathered in the Hub Hotel in Addis Ababa on Saturday, September 23, together with institutional guests, partners, donors and local authorities to retrace a long-standing history of commitment and dedication.

Cuamm – Ethiopia 2023, Learning from the past, looking to the future is the first annual general meeting organized by Cuamm in the country, not only to share good practices and lessons learned but also to look forward and face present and future challenges that we have to address in order to continue promoting the right to health for all.

“The humanitarian situation in Ethiopia continues to be critical,” said Agostino Palese, Ambassador of Italy in Addis Ababa during the meeting. Supporting the Ethiopian health system is a priority for the Italian government and cooperation. I have personally visited several hospitals in the country and I am convinced that must act now. This is why we will continue to work, also with Cuamm, to meet the basic needs of the population and strengthen health facilities in the most fragile areas of the country.”

Many are the fragile areas in Ethiopia: from the northern region of Tigray, wrecked by a long war, to Oromia hardly hit by severe floods to Gambella bordering South Sudan where currently more than 933.000 refugees are accomodated in refugees camps, mainly coming from South Sudan, Eritrea and Somalia plus 4,38 millions of IDPs caused mainly by the Tigray war. CUAMM is working in these areas as in the rest of the country to address the basic needs of the population. Our staff presented the current interventions on the ground in the first session of the meeting which was dedicated to CUAMM’s approach, activities and good practices in Ethiopia. We therefore explored Maternal and child health, Early Child Development, the increasing global burden of NCDs, the Management of health facilities in humanitarian settings as the key role of mobile clinics in providing health assistance to the last mile.

Throughout the second session, we focused on the St. Luke Catholic Hospital in Wolisso. The hospital was built in 2000 together with a nursing and midwifery school in collaboration with the Ethiopian Catholic Church and the regional government of Oromia. CUAMM’s support has been continuous ever since. 837 students graduated since the opening of the school, number of assisted deliveries increased from around 400 in the first year (2001) to over 3,500 in 2022; OPD also increased from only 14,000 in 2001 to over 60,000 in 2022.

In 2019 the hospital was awarded the certificate of excellence from the Ethiopia Medical Association and today, despite the numerous difficulties, it continues to offer specialistic health services through psychiatric clinic, gynecological clinic, surgical clinic, orthopedic clinic, ophthalmic clinic and others.

«It is important to learn from the past and evaluate what was done. Over the years, CUAMM has been doing a lot in the health sector and Wolisso hospital is with any doubts a model of commitment. We have to continue cooperating with governments, benefactors and friends who share our same mission: to ensure the right to health to those who cannot acceed it» said Musie Ghebreghiorghis – Bishop of Emdeber diocese during his welcoming speech in which he called those who believe in the same idea to join us in support of Wolisso hospital. An appeal made also by father Dante Carraro who address the guests saying: «If we really want to change the future, it is important to put all our efforts, we must all play our part and then we must connect, create collaborations and work together».

«This event was a proof of team work and dedication. It has been for us an important moment to thank donors, authorities and partners we collaborated with over this 43 years in Ethiopia and who shared with us the same mission: to promote health for all» claimed Luisa Gatta, CUAMM Country Manager in Ethiopia.

According to the latest report published by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, there are 108.4 million refugees worldwide fleeing war, persecution and violence, 27.2 million of whom within the African continent alone.

They are internally displaced persons and refugees forced to leave everything behind to go towards a new horizon of possibilities.
A horizon that can be blue, wide and boundless, like a open sea, the Mediterranean, where according to IOM – UN Migration 26.000 hopes have been dashed forever in the past 10 years. But also the narrow horizon shaped like an overcrowded shed, such as that of China Camp in Debre Berhan, Ethiopia where 200.000 displaced people live in shelters, or that of a moltitude of tents set up in the bush, such as many IDP camps in Cabo Delgado province, Mozambique where the number of internally displaced people is close to one million.

According to UNHCR’s annual report (2022), the number of people forced to flee because of war, persecution, violence and human rights violations saw an unprecedented increase of 19.1 million over the previous year. Complicated by both the war in Ukraine, ongoing conflicts in the rest of the world and climate change, the primary cause of droughts and environmental disasters.

We believe is worth noting that 27.2 million of internally displaced people are within Africa alone, people who moved between African countries or within the same country, what is generally known as internal migration. We see this in South Sudan, a country that counted 2.3 million refugees hosted in neighboring countries, and over 2 million internally displaced persons. Numbers that have changed, since the beginning of the conflict erupted in Sudan, exacerbating the situation in one of the most fragile countries in the world. In fact, according to OCHA (April 2023), South Sudan has taken in 23.000 refugees: among them, Sudanese refugees, refugees from third countries or even South Sudanese who have returned as a result of the conflict. These are emergency situations that strain already unstable systems, weighing on the political, economic and health levels.

Numbers that are expected to grow dramatically due to the effects of climatechange: droughts, famines but also extreme weather events such as cyclones or floods.

In the face of these situations, whether chronic crisis or pure emergency, we renew our commitment to ensure decent living conditions and access to health services for those fleeing war, persecution and violence, everywhere.