Collaboration with Districts; Wakiso and Hoima
AMBSO’s center of collaboration lies with the district local governments of Wakiso and Hoima through the offices of the District Health Officer (DHO) and the District Community Development Officer (DCDO). The collaboration with the 2 districts started way back in 2017 when AMBSO was planning to start conducting its activities and without these important collaborations, AMBSO cannot be able to operationalize its mandate at the grassroot.
A map of Uganda showing Hoima District
Over a time, a strong working relationship between AMBSO and the 2 district local governments has grown from strong to stronger. This culminated into AMBSO signing Memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with these 2 districts of operation i.e; Wakiso and Hoima. The MOUs opened up for AMBSO to closely work with the district while implementing its research and service activities.
The collaboration with districts is also aimed at fostering a population centered approach to service provision and research. At entry, the AMBSO team held engagement meetings with the District Health Teams; led by the District Health Officers. The meetings spelt out organizational scope and described the nature of partitivities that will be conducted. The collaboration is currently characterized by the following developments;
The Wakiso district administration block where AMBSO regularly meets with the DHO and his team
Contribution to district priorities
Community activities that are conducted by AMBSO such as HIV counseling and testing, health education, and management of sexually transmitted diseases that directly contributes to the district targets. These are reported into the district Health Information Systems (DHIS)
Participatory planning
This happens where AMBSO and the district teams discuss complementary activities that can amplify the impact of the program activities. Through discussions with the District teams, needs are identified that AMBSO program can support such as training of community volunteers on Gender based violence, sensitization and counseling and referral of HIV positive persons to Care and Treatment services.
Sharing information on important health indicators based on research findings
This is a timely periodic feedback that the AMBSO technical team provides in the DHT meetings.
Knowledge base support to the district
The AMBSO team continuously engages the district teams through meetings to discuss ongoing plans and to orient them on programmatic modifications. In partnership, community services such as drug and substance abuse have been implemented by AMBSO.
