Now the development project is firmly underway in Katine sub-county, we've asked Amref to provide us with regular updates on the work it is doing on the ground. By reading these, as well as our regular reports from the region, you should be able to build a picture of everything going on in Katine.
This first one details the work done from 14 January 2008 up to the start of this week, across Amref's five project components of: health, water, education, livelihoods and governance. Crucially, Amref is also supplying information on its own monitoring and evaluation (M&E) methods, to ensure it is meeting its own objectives and the needs of the Katine people.
Once you've taken a look, I'd like to ask what you think of our coverage of the project so far. Are there areas of the project you would like to see us cover in more detail? Which specific issues are we not yet exploring? Is the information below too technical or would you like even more detail from Amref? I welcome all your comments below, or you can email me at: Katine.Editor@theguardian.com
* The laboratory assessment report was finalised. The report on the construction requirements for the Tiriri Health Centre IV is to be finished next week * Health unit management committee training took place on 25 January 2007, with 23 out of 25 people trained. This training covered the management process as a whole and included a reinforcement of roles and responsibilities, a review of the decision-making process, supervisory skills for health units and budgeting. The intended impact is to improve the committee's ability to manage health services in Katine, increase the efficiency of the and to provide a better quality of patient care. Training for traditional birth attendants begins at the end of this week * Two boreholes have been and one has been rehabilitated and is now functional (one borehole serves approximately 350-400 people). One more is being rehabilitated by the end of this week. * The sub-county water source committee is responsible for managing the boreholes and will be reviewing progress so far on the boreholes. By encouraging sub-county participation the local government has more ownership of water source committees, whilst the water source committees at the community level give the community a voice in water-related decisions. Links between the two levels of committee facilitates dialogue between the local government and the community. * Three per borehole have now been trained at village level. There was considerable community participation in deciding, in consultation with other technical committees, on where boreholes should be drilled. * Sanitation kits (including all the materials required to construct and equip a latrine) for latrine excavation have been given to the school construction committees (which includes community members). Each of the two schools have received kits and will begin working this week. * Amorikot and Kadinya schools will begin Parent Teachers Associations (PTA) training and strengthening of the school management committees in the next week. The training aims to induce improved community management of school learning and teaching processes and to empower the community to advocate for improvements to schools at the district level. * Preparation is taking place this week for teacher training in child-centred teaching methodology. * The livelihood community meetings are taking place this week with supervision and membership of group leaders. Farm-Africa is the technical leader in this component while Barclays is currently meeting with the livelihood officers in Katine. The purpose of Barclays' trip is to advise the officers of technical issues related to the livelihoods component of the programme and to work with Barclays on developing further the financial inclusion component of the project * In the next week, AMREF will start facilitating sub-county meetings and district level meetings to examine how to develop community information sessions with IEC (Information, Education, Communication) materials. This requires a series of consultative meetings around how best to communicate community rights to health, education, sanitation and good governance (whether through radio shows, posters in villages, leaflets etc). Over this quarter, focus groups will be set up to get community input on developing IEC materials and to provide feedback on effectiveness of materials produced. * The Ugandan Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) training took place last week which went very well; data collectors conducted in 95 households as part of the baseline survey. All the questionnaires are being collated and data entry is being finalised. The final baseline survey will be complete by the beginning of March. * The internet connection in the new Amref Katine field office has been set up and the office move is due to happen this week. However, Amref needs to borrow a generator to power up the computers. Challenges have included high fuel costs (as a consequence of the instability in Kenya) and lack of generators to meet the power needs of the team.
