Richard Aliwaali goes from door to door, from community to community, past semi-permanent houses painted brown by the dust in Kabembe Mukono district, Uganda. He is the chairman of the Asiika Obulamu people living with HIV/AIDS group which works to tackle discrimination and focuses on unplanned pregnancies and HIV among young people.
Richard said: “Girls get pregnant as early as 12. As a father and a teacher, I am concerned by this.” Formerly a teacher at Mukono primary school, Richard quit his job to start the group. “I was a widower and not getting enough salary to cater for my needs. I lost my wife and my son to HIV and had a family of four girls to care for, but this was a calling. I wanted a closer relationship with my community and teaching didn’t offer this.”
Richard is himself HIV positive and he tells his story to everyone as a way of encouraging HIV positive people in different communities to visit their health centres. Only a handful of teenage mothers used to attend the hospital for antenatal checkups, yet Richard knew there were hundreds in different villages of Mukono district alone who could not access health services. “At first I encouraged six women,” he said, “prioritising women’s reproductive health and HIV/AIDS. We often met at a mango tree in the afternoons.”
Motivation
Personal gain is far from Richard’s mind and he exudes humanity. “It’s difficult to talk about sex with young people but I feel inspired and very motivated,” he said. “I want to be a role model to millions of Ugandans. I get joy when I see a person who might have died early because they are HIV positive living healthily and saying thank you.”
Richard is also a network support agent based at Mukono health centre IV where he tracks and maps pregnant mothers who visit the antenatal care unit. With those who test HIV positive, he ensures that they are followed up by the prevention of mother to child transmission unit and visits them in their respective homes.
“In three months I enrolled 40 young and adult women to access the unit and family planning services”, he said. His great aim is to see increased demand for and take up of services to prevent transmission of HIV from mothers to their babies, especially among young mothers. He is also keen to strengthen the capacity of networks of people living with HIV to support services and increase access to family planning among women living with HIV.
Achievements
Richard has helped to transform lives with his approach to living positively. By focusing on HIV, sexually transmitted infections, reproductive health rights, family planning, breast feeding and life skills, his people living with HIV group has blossomed and communities are being educated about health behaviour such as the importance of pregnant mothers attending antenatal care as early as three months into the pregnancy. He also encourages members of the group to access antiretroviral therapy.
“Once a week I visit different schools to sensitise the community about HIV, family planning, and the dangers of early sex. More than 200 girls have benefited from the awareness sessions and gone on to sit their exams, remaining in school without getting pregnant.”
Richard’s main challenge is the difficulties he faces when it comes to mapping and tracking women living with HIV as some tend to relocate and others simply don’t return to the health facility. So the mothers are given basins, jerry cans and mosquito nets to motivate them to keep visiting their health centre, whether HIV positive or negative.
Richard was identified by the International HIV/AIDS Alliance in Uganda when they organised a training session for network support agents in 2009 where he was able to improve his skills and knowledge of prevention of mother to child transmission, advocacy and lobbying for funds to support his people living with HIV group.
community members drawing their village map on how to map pregnant young mothers
