The BIC Model
One Sunday night back in 2018, an expectant mother arrived at Suubi for delivery but with complications and couldn’t have a normal delivery. Using a Suubi ambulance, she was rushed to 3 different hospitals, a distance of 134 kilometers until the Suubi team found the hospital that had a doctor on night duty to offer a C-Section, 5 hours later. The health center regularly encounters patients with the 3-Delays: Delay to seek medical attention, Delay to access transportation, and the Delay by drug shops and some public institutions in offering adequate and appropriate medical attention. The 3-Delays describe the socio-economic and cultural factors that influence health outcomes including low household income, family dynamics and power to make decisions, transport system and capacity of the health facilities to provide quality care.
​
Budondo Intercultural Center is striving to increase access and utilisation of health services, household income and food security since 2012. The organisation runs two community health centers - Suubi and Shanti Health Centers, and invests directly in individuals and families through the motorcycle loan scheme and the population health and environment programs to build household resilience and income generation through the village health teams network. A woman in the village expecting a baby can listen to a village health worker who has given her a voucher for free antenatal care and make a visit to Suubi, saving her baby’s life. A father in Budondo can be a support to his wife and attend family planning sessions with her. His wife can then join the committee formed to advise the leadership of Suubi of the challenges facing people in the village. The father and wife can also join population, health and environment activities that illustrate how environmental ecosystems are related to their family, their needs and the society around them. They can rethink how the plant needs fertile soil, water, sunlight and with enough spacing to ensure healthy growth and how this relates to their own family size and their position within a larger society. A program manager at Suubi can teach women that it is not fair and not inevitable that they should be put in danger during childbirth. She can teach them about ways of pressuring their politicians to make changes. They can organize. They can protest. She and her organization can provide the quality healthcare that people in the community deserve.
​
This ecosystem of actors - of people - listening to one another and doing their part with humility, integrity and cooperation, can build strong and effective solutions to the challenges faced in achieving good health and wellbeing. The long term goal is to see healthy and sustainable rural communities in Uganda.
Meet the Team

Martin Okumu
InCharge - Suubi Health Center
Use this space to introduce yourself and share your professional history.

Josephine Kizito
InCharge - Shanti Health Center
Use this space to introduce yourself and share your professional history.