ACT Uganda Blog

How do you make communities healthy? One way is through public health efforts which include awareness-building, education, encouragement, commitment - all things our ACT HEAL Team strives to achieve! Here is our latest HEAL Happenings Newsletter, created by Robin Stottlemyer, our US HEAL Team Leader. In it she describes the great work that our staff and Health Promotion Workers do. Read for yourself! Don't forget to check us out on our Facebook page: ACTUgandaUSA  

There is a unique and wonderful nonprofit, based in Portland Oregon, Chess For Success, whose mission is: "We use chess as a tool for building community, connection, and confidence."   (https://www.chessforsuccess.org/)  ACT has partnered with CFS to bring the program to Muko, Uganda. Muko is the first place CFS has been established outside the U.S.! In addition to their mission of building community, connection, and confidence, what will happen in Muko is learning of critical thinking, problem-solving and strategy which are elements that will be strong additions to the education there.  CFS provided 50 Chess boards and sets to ACT which we took to Uganda in August, 2022. Teachers from Muko High School are the coaches for the "club" under the excellent leadership of Mathias Atuheire, Science Teacher, and Rev Philip Ntwirenabo, Head Teacher. Interestingly enough, the leaders and coaches do not have to already know how to play chess to teach it to the students. The in

 (December 2022) When Sue Waechter asked if I was interested in writing a post for the ACT blog to describe my time as a Peace Corps Volunteer living and working in Muko, my first thought was how would I ever be able to summarize the year and a half I spent in Muko in one blog post? With so many things happening in my there, what story should I try and tell? When I think back to my time in Muko, I always feel it is the story of a community that took care of me, taught me new things, and helped me to survive in an environment that was completely new to me. When I first arrived in 2018, I didn't know if I would be able to make it two years. My first evening there I sat in the grass staring at the lake and wondering how I could make it so long in a place so far away from home. Everyday felt like a struggle to navigate the difference between Uganda and my home (Texas), and at the end of most days I would only want to come home and be alone. After only a few weeks of living in Muko, I l