Thirty-three-year old Joeria Nalule Kasule has committed herself to sensitise communities about maternal and sexual reproductive health. Her determination and zeal to see and live with well-informed, health mothers and girls led her to start Kasule Joeria Foundation. She shares her story to Lilian Ntenge.
Beginning & inspiration
From her Facebook page, ‘The Preganancy Tips Africa’, on which she used to give pregnancy tips to new mothers, and pregnant teenagers, Nalule realised there were different issues brought out in the comments.
Among the commonly discussed was the health challenges mothers face during pregnancy and after giving birth.
And from this, she felt the need to sensitise them, this time physically under a registered organisation. In 2021, she officially started.
An accountant by profession, Nalule is not officially in practice, apart from when she applies her accounting skills at her online restaurant, J&C Bites.
More of what inspired her to physically start the sensitisation was the fact that many mothers and teenage girls were not able to access the Facebook page where she shared tips.
“I realised it was becoming more helpful as different kinds of women were counselling and advising each other, and also sharing recommendations.
“But I thought of mothers or teenagers out there, who cannot access social media and I had to do something,” she says.
In addition, she believes it is a calling from God, because her work has been so far so good.
“It satisfies my soul every time a mother shares her happiness with me.
“Some of them even call me while in labour to receive the babies,” she says.
How she works
Nalule and her team move to villages doing door to door sensitisation.
They also carry out sensitisation in schools in order to reach the teenage girls, who may not receive such information while at school.
Purposely, they target remote areas which are likely to have low or no access to media.
During their programmes, they emphasise to women the importance of antenatal care because most rural women do not take it significantly.
More so, most of them start visiting medical facilities when they are almost due, and this puts their lives and the unborn babies at risk.
The foundation also sensitises couples about the importance of HIV testing and how they can possibly have HIV negative children, in case the parents are found positive.
She also says they provide awareness on malaria prevention, and other related diseases that are a risk to pregnant women and new mothers.
Having no professional medical training, Nalule decided to partner with Paragon Hospital Kampala to ensure her target people receive authentic information from the doctors.
She has built an understanding with the doctors at the hospital, who treat the mothers for those who can afford the medical fee.
She says: “We are glad that the health facility picked interest in what I do and decided to partner with me.
“This has also helped various women that have been treated here.”
Apart from sensitisation, Nalule and her team provide necessities like clothes, food, soap, diapers, among other others, to mothers who are in need.
They also usually visit babies’ homes and orphanages, where they take basic needs to the children.
They have visited Nsambya Babies Home and Theresa House Orphanage.
She says they are planning to visit more health centres this year, to check on the new mothers, who may need the postnatal information, or any other need.
Asked how she finances the organisation, Nalule says they largely depend on donations from well-wishers.
Challenges
She says she is at times overwhelmed when she cannot find solutions to some of the problems women face, especially those facing infertility.
In such instances, she says she prays with the women and recommends them to professionals for more help.
They also have a problem of inadequate funds which has limited most of their movements, putting a lot of activities on hold.
Future plans
Nalule says they are planning to also consider sensitising men because they need to know motherhood experiences, so that they understand how to treat their wives who are pregnant or just gave birth.
However, they are still devising means on how this will be implemented.
