Numbers surround us and overwhelm us on a daily basis. From trying to calculate the exchange rate for finances to reviewing attendance numbers of outreaches and interventions, I often forget that each number has a person or commodity attached to it. Every participation sheet for an outreach represents real people and their stories. In my role as a Monitoring and Evaluation Officer for Uganda Village Project, I deal with numbers on a daily basis. That is great for the organization, without numbers it is hard to measure and evaluate impact or progress, however, with the constant barrage of numbers it is hard to find time to see the human story behind them.
I was given the opportunity to do just that last month through an impact evaluation that Julius, my co-fellow, and I conducted to measure how UVP has made health change in the communities it works in. In total we have taken on 24 villages since 2009 through our “Healthy Villages” program (a commitment to work in that village for the next three years providing services and building a link between the District Health Office and the community) and have even more in which the organization plans to intervene. For the project, Julius and I went to 63 of the villages, both intervention and non-intervention, to gather data about health behaviors, knowledge, and demographics. In each village we surveyed 15 households, which accumulates to approximately 5700 individuals captured in the data. For analysis, we will be comparing the intervention to non-intervention, as well as to similar data collected in 2009. During the collection period I was able to travel to the field with the enumerator team that I oversaw, seeing firsthand what some of the numbers I had been working with all year really mean.
It was an eye-opening experience to say the least. Despite all the numbers and exposure I had to the Busoga kingdom living and working in Iganga, nothing really prepared me to see the passion and strength needed to thrive in the remote areas of the district. Numbers can only go so far to portray a woman who is raising 4 children on her own and data cannot come close to describing her burning desire to see them all through their education. Throughout the 36 days of data collection I experienced joy and sorrow, pain and jubilation, and saw so much need. Uganda Village Project is changing lives in the villages where it works, however for every village they work in there are six more than need help. It is hard to know that, and hard not to be able to do anything currently. But that knowledge has emboldened me to a future in global health where one day I hope to see that need met, and instead of seeing health-related sorrow and pain I will see only joy.
