Disease and poor health are unfortunate consequences of poverty. A lack of nutritious food weakens the body and the immune system. And diseases that are nonexistent or easily treated in this country can be devastating in Rwanda.

In taking an integrated approach to fulfilling UJAMAA’s mission we have designated community health as one of our core primary programs. This program focuses on creating physical and social infrastructures enabling communities to promote practices that ensure the health of entire communities.

During UJAMAA’s June 2008 trip, seven team members travelled to Bwiza, a pilot community selected by the Batwa (East African Pygmies) to assist with a research project determining the effects of Vitamin D and deworming on the health of the community. All individuals in the community were weighed and heights were measured by the group to document change and determine the dosage of medicines to be administered. Follow up to determine if this intervention improves the health of the community will be continued by the primary grant recipients.

The group provided a donation of shoes to the community and then responded to the request to purchase school uniforms and provided health insurance to each community member. This included photographing individuals and printing each card, as well as paying a small fee to cover two years of government health insurance.

Turn on a tap and abundant clean water is available. It is easy to take something for granted when it is always there. Comprehending the global need for water is difficult when public waterworks are aptly funded It is unimaginable to even think of walking one hour down a steep hillside to a muddy open puddle and repetitively dip a small container into the hole and pour its contents into a 5-gallon fuel can hauling it several miles back up the ravine to their village, only to repeat the journey two more times each day. Yet that is what the residents of Bwiza were doing when the community development team visited in June of 2008. Unable to afford charcoal to boil the water for sanitation, 100% of the community has intestinal parasites. Preliminary plans were made in 2008 and the engineer returned to complete a gravity feed well downstream from the original water hole in November 2009.. A second water source was also located. Plans are set for a 2010 return to dig a second well and build a cistern to hold the water for the dry season.