Every year, the Embassy of Ireland in Kampala joins one of its implementing partners to celebrate World AIDS Day. This year, the Embassy partnered with Mama’s Club to highlight the importance of male involvement in the Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) of HIV/AIDS.
On 4th December 2014, the Embassy staff, led by Ambassador Dónal Cronin, visited the community of Wampeewo, Wakiso district, which is one of the areas Mama’s Club implements it’s activities.
One of its clients and community activist is Milly, a 43 year old mother of 3. She lost her husband to AIDS and found out her sero-status in 1990. She sought medical and psychosocial support from The AIDS Support Organisation (TASO) in 1992 and is still a member of the organisation. Milly rears pigs as an income-generating activity and uses the money from their sale for medicine and transport. She is fortunate enough to grow most of her food. Her adult children aged, 30, 22 and 18 years are all HIV negative.
In its programme of prompting male involvement in PMTCT, Mama’s Club is fortunate to have one of the leading local artists as its champion - Robert Kyagulanyi, commonly known as Bobi Wine, together with his wife Barbara. Bobbi and Barbara often join Mama’s Club for outreach activities in order to encourage men to get involved in PMTCT including at Wampeewo. True to his style, he wooed the Embassy staff and the crowd with his music.
The Ambassador commended Mama’s Club for its efforts in prevention of HIV/AIDS. He encouraged the community, especially the men, to be involved and support their partners in the promotion of PMTCT, in order to ensure that Uganda reaches its target of having an HIV free generation and zero new infections rate.
