To provide sustainable information service, counseling, and educational support to individuals, families and grassroot communities improve their health, psychosocial and economic well being.
Compassionate Trust Services is an indigenous organization formed by professional teachers and counselors who disseminate objective educational information to enhance human development.
To become recognized as an information and educational network for healthy living and social development.
Compassionate Trust Services (COTS) was born on the 2nd of October 1998.
Mr. Kasule S Peter, a professional teacher since 1989, left the teaching profession in 1990 to join the crusade against HIV/AIDS that was ravaging his country at the time. This was in response to the AIDS Support Organization (TASO) the first and now renowned indigenous organization to care for AIDS patients in Uganda. The next 7 years saw him in and out of AIDS Service organizations serving at different levels as HIV/IDS counselor, administrator, trainer, social worker and project officer.
In mid 1997 despite his experience and training in AIDS care he lost employment and could not find one in the numerous AIDS services organization both local and international that were crisscrossing the country.
He realized at the time that there were many colleagues in the same calling with a lot of experience that were also out of employment. This was very intriguing and disheartening as the government and international agencies were painting a grim reality of the AIDS epidemic and pandemic that needed a lot of effort to stem it. And here were professional and experienced manpower walking the streets totally redundant in an epidemic threatening the social, economic, and health of a country.
Kasule mobilized 6 of his colleagues and held a meeting to chart out a means of how they could continue offering services to their communities and also end their redundancy and the endless search for employment. This was a challenging task as all the 7 members in attendance were living on charity for survival.
During that meeting at his house it was resolved that they could form a non-profit information service organization in the private sector so that they can be of service to the community and also obtain minimal income to support them selves. This saw the birth of Compassionate Trust Services on the 2nd of October, without any financial resource to lay down the infrastructure.
The choice of an information service was based on the experiential dire need for counseling and information by the public scared by the seemingly deadly AIDS that was spreading like bush fire unnoticed in the communities. Up to today there is no single AIDS Service organization (Among the AIDS orthodox) that offers beneficial counseling to its numerous poor ill informed clientele affected by “HIV/AIDS disease”. "Long Term Survivors" often are heard conversing among themselves that they know more than their counselors! And this is very true as most of the counselors themselves are convinced that the HIV antibody test is a test for the presence of HIV infection. At the founding of COTS none of the founding members knew that there existed alternative and dissenting views. However, thanks to the inquisitive nature of Kasule Peter that took him to the internet to search for explanations of conflicting, confusing and sometimes unexplainable issues like, different results for the same individual, discordant couples, widows suspected of having HIV remarrying and giving birth to health children and living happily thereafter, and AIDS Vaccine - how to differentiate HIV antibodies signifying infection and those induced by vaccines heralding protection- he discovered HEAL-New York! This was a turning point in his life and attitude towards HIV/AIDS. God bless Michael Ellner and Christine Magiorre for their invaluable support in providing the information packages- “It is the New Testament” for those who are living in the shadow of the HIV/AIDS death paradigm.
COTS was initiated to respond to existing gaps in information delivery to the public and promotion of counseling and health education as an independent service. Also COTS aims to set up a skills training center focusing on women who lack skills for self support and providing technical support to community groups engaged in developing health and social economic development projects.
For the next six-month COTS struggled to obtain legal status, the major constraint being the lack of money to process the necessary documents. At the end of March 1999 legal status was granted. At the time a small tailoring workshop was operational with only two ordinary manual tailoring machines. COTS members are volunteers and their services are limited by resource constraints.
At present, almost two years from initiation COTS has set up:
It is almost two decades since the AIDS effects begun to put up their ugly face in Uganda. The effects and impact of HIV/AIDS misdiagnosis on the Ugandan Society have been enormous. There are now generation gaps, with differing effects from the medical aspect of the infection to Social, Educational, cultural, religious and economic life of the people. This situation can be traced to the emergence of Dictatorial and Corrupt and repressive regimes, which have maintained civil strife/and senseless wars from the late 1960’s as a means to keep power at the expense of social development.
The immediate response to the authoritarian Misrule was the Exit of the Intelligentsia. Many institutions lost the most learned and educated Ugandans who went into exile to save their skin. At community level in the villages people were subject to harassment and became internally displaced people either by civil wars or going into hiding as a result of local political persecution. This was the beginning of the end of social development.
The politics of Uganda have been characterized by hunting opponents than harnessing the vital skilled manpower to build society. When Amin ousted Obote in a bloody coup, social decadence accelerated. The onus was on money - Quick money. It meant smuggling, robberies, intrigue, murder conspiracy, plots and counter plots. There remained and still remains one area where one can invest and reap abundantly – in the power of he gun, taking state power and earn (“steal”) the donor money and the poor man’s tax unaccountable to anybody. The majority of our politicians can only survive from state power employment.
Uganda is a rich agricultural country with rainfall all year round, yet from the mid-seventies up to 1988 a hoe, the most basic implement, was not available on the market and when available unaffordable to the average man-peasant tilling the land for a subsistence livelihood. Today in the 21st century there are many families and households that cannot afford to buy hoes for the able bodied adults who can till the plots of land to eke out a living. At present a hoe costs US$2. In rural areas there are thieves who steal hoes! So this is the state of Ugandan agriculture which raises critical and poignant issues on the nutritional status and heath of the majority at risk of being infected with the deadly virus and come down with AIDS in seven to ten years.
Given this situation at the community level and the intrigue at the state level, the education infrastructure declined. Many good teachers left the country to Kenya and the South African states. The schools became riddled with student strikes demanding good teachers, books, and good food – but there was none. Then the wars came and the schools were looted. The mentality of money had taken the place of education. People up to today praise people who have money no matter how they got it. Since the 1970's people look down on the very teacher whom they entrust their children for education simply because the teachers hardly make ends meet. The teachers are the most malnourished educated class of our society due to poor pay which in some circumstances teachers would take 3 to 8 months without pay.
At present the literacy level in the country stands at 51% for male and 49% for female. And this literacy level encompasses those who can only read and write in their mother tongue or local dialect. Uganda has more than fifty-six different tribes speaking their own unique local languages. So it is a disheartening situation when an educated doctor tells 50% of illiterate Ugandans that they are infected with the HIV virus, which will kill them, and they can’t afford the drugs which the doctor himself knows little about. Then they are told of safer sex means and condoms and are left stranded and more confused in their ignorance. The doctors in Uganda who are not employed by the orthodox AIDS campaigners in the state machinery and NGOs are as ill informed as any average person of any calling – all scared, stressed and dying of AIDS. There are now three categories of schools right from Primary to Tertiary institutions. The Private Schools of the well to do, the Government Supported Schools of the well to do - they are semi private because parents pay more school fees than in many of the third category of Schools. The third category is popularly known as “third world schools” of Uganda. These are both government and privately owned - this is where the children of the poor go. They are characterized by very dilapidated buildings, poor sanitation, very poor teachers academically and economically, no furniture, there are no textbooks for both teachers and students. Facilities like laboratories, library, and sports and recreation facilities are non-existent. Children are in these schools to grow and reach taxable age rather than to become educated. In primary schools they are over populated with average teacher ratio of 110 pupils to a teacher in densely populated areas especially in the urban townships.
A look at the history of our health care reveals the holocaust of AIDS. From the years of Misrule to date there is still a steady brain drain of doctors searching for green pastures. Despite the population ratio of One doctor to 10,000 people some doctors are not employed by the state or can’t find employment in the private hospitals run by the Christian missions and the Islamic religious hospitals.
Most government hospitals and Health Centers don’t have drugs and most often are understaffed. The private hospitals are expensive for the local population. From the 1970’s most people rely on traditional herbal medicine for ailments which are often misdiagnosed and sometimes bordering on witchcraft. In up country many people remain at home very sick and when one visits the health center you find empty beds without bedding, redundant skeleton staff and lack of drugs.
This situation gave rise to the locally known Drug shops, mini pharmacies sometimes attended by non-medical personnel, especially in the rural areas. The purpose of these stores is to sell drugs to people with or without a prescription. They don’t care about dosage; drugs are dispensed depending on the amount of money a person has. The overriding factor is not health service but profit. Drugs in Uganda are a lucrative business. Drugs in drug stores/shops don’t expire because they are traded in for profit. This has been going on since the early seventies.
These happenings have taken place in a rapidly changing society due to great advances in communication leading to mass population movements and great influence from the Western culture. There is great need for interventions to provide guidance to individuals, families and groups of people on how they can cope with these positive and negative changes around them.
The provision of Information networks, counseling services and appropriate training services are very critical necessities to address individual concerns on how to cope with each individual’s unique circumstances he has found himself/herself in.
Individual and family focus is very important because of cross cultural mix of people caused by mass movements of people due to wars, trade, rural urban migrations in search of safe places, and a new kind of life.
The individualistic attitudes born out of the past and present realities necessitates individuals to access Factual information and knowledge on how to deal with the different problems and situations they are facing. The situations of most of Ugandan societies can be found by visiting the AIDS & Poverty Hotline Stories.
Compassionate trust services is engaged in three major project activities which are guided by the following objectives:
Design Center Project: Offers tailoring skills to women and out of school girls.
This is a model project to show that long term development practical approaches can support poor people to come out of poverty and dispel the HIV/AIDS paradigms by empowering people with capacity and basic means to live in wellness.
HEAL Kampala Network: providing alternative HIV/AIDS information for living in wellness.
Technical support in Project Planning: Assisting local groups with information and technical support to develop development projects to support the well being of their families.
This site will present true stories of the people struggling in hostile circumstances to come to terms or overcome the many problems existing in this era of AIDS. The readers are encouraged to appreciate the stamina of these ill informed people to survive conditions largely brought about by those they hope and run to as their savior.
It will also highlight individuals, families and community efforts that are associated with COTS, who are trying to help themselves deal with poverty, heath and development issues affecting them.
Barely two years old, COTS, is entirely dependant on volunteers (in Uganda volunteers spend their time, energy, and little resources to serve others without any pay) it is ill equipped with its one room office and one room for the women’s workshop at Kasule Peter’s unfinished house, the founding director.
Any support, material or financial makes COTS projects take a step head to bring more hope, happiness and wellness to beneficiaries struggling to end the traumatizing circumstances they wish to put behind their back.
Support Can be sent to COTS directly or sent to the Alberta Reappraising AIDS Society, which will forward it on.
On behalf of all the grassroot beneficiaries COTS (Design centre, HEAL Kampala) recognizes and appreciates greatly the initial tremendous support from:
Mr. Kasule S Peter
Director
Compassionate Trust Services (COTS)
HEAL Kampala
Box 30686
Kampala
Uganda.
Telephone: 256 041 531045
Donations for meeting expenses, computer equipment and office space can be sent via cheque in any currency to:
c/o Alberta Reappraising AIDS Society
Box 61037, Kensington PO
Calgary, Alberta T2N 4S6, Canada.
Telephone: +1 403 220 0129
Email: aras@aras.ab.ca
We will arrange for safe transmission of the donation to Uganda, and provide a receipt for the donation.
Copyright © COTS,