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LAUNCH OF POPULATION, HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENT PROGRAM

LAUNCH OF POPULATION, HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENT PROGRAM

Workshop Participants at the Launch of the Population, Health and Environment Initiative.


CTPH launched a Population, Health and Environment (PHE) initiative through a planning workshop with stakeholders on 7th February 2007 in Kanungu District where Bwindi is found. This program has potential to strengthen community based family planning in communities surrounding Bwindi Impenetrable National Park.

The USAID PHE initiative has been successful in many parts of the world through partnerships with conservation organizations including the Jane Goodall Institute in Gombe National Park, Tanzania and World Wildlife Fund and Conservation International in Madagascar.

CTPH is honored to have been chosen as their partner for the first PHE program in Uganda, in an area of very high population density impacting the long term survival of the estimated 760 critically endangered mountain gorillas. CTPH plans to build on the community based health care model for TB to incorporate family planning.

To start the process, CTPH signed an MOU with Kanungu District Local Government to expand to Bujengwe and include HIV, Scabies and Family Planning. CTPH also subcontracted Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST) Medical School with a focus on Community Based Health Care. MUST 4th year medical students conducted a needs assessment for family planning in Mukono and Bujengwe parishes, where we intend to launch the program, which will focus on strengthening community focused family planning and education campaigns on the links between conservation, disease, family planning, livelihoods and ecotourism.