Staff of Kawempe Maternal Hospital and Kajjansi Health Centre have received Christmas hampers worth millions of shillings in a gesture of appreciation led by Stanbic Bank Uganda Limited in partnership with several other corporate brands including Crown Beverages, Harris International and Madhvani Group.
This year, a total of 690 hampers have been donated in a tradition that was first started three years ago.
Kawempe is Uganda’s largest maternal health facility with a 200 bed capacity. Dr. Emmanuel Byaruhanga, the Executive Director said, “On average, we have about 80 deliveries per day. That is 24 hours, thirty of which are cesarean sections and then the rest in normal deliveries. I don’t know what I can say about Stanbic and Kawempe because you are one of the most thoughtful partners, not only in motivating our staff but also in helping us deliver our mandate.”
He said, “As you know our main mandate is obstetric services; that is deliveries and then pediatric services, the children. I know even before I came here you were very much involved in donating equipment, which is our biggest problem because of the high number of mothers and children that we have and our equipment frequently breaks down.”
“We are very grateful for this. We thank you very much for your generosity. We thank the partners for their generosity, the ones who mobilize. And we can just pray that God blesses you and gives you more”. Said Byaruhanga
The items were courtesy of a collaborative effort by several corporate brands led by Stanbic Bank. The others were Crown Beverages, Harris International (Riham) ,Bakhresa, Madhvani Group, SupaLoaf, and Psalms Crisps. The items included sugar, baking flour, snacks, soda, sweets, juice, bread and beverages.
The Stanbic Bank Chief Executive Anne Juuko said, “As I start my remarks, I will start with thanking the Stanbic Bank team because charity must always begin at home. They’re incredibly busy people, but they choose to do this work in maternal health and they do this
at no extra cost, there’s no extra pay going to them. They must just add it to the rest of the work the bank gives them. So when I say that they are heroes; they really are.”
She said, “My next message of gratitude is to the frontline health workers. The sacrifices you make, the time you take, the love you give, the care you give, can never ever be quantified. There’s no place where they can put all those things. There’s no Christmas hamper that can ever say thank you enough or that commensurates the work that you do. But take this small token as our show of sincere and utmost gratitude, we are very grateful.”
She said, “Friends, this is home. You can be many things, but at the end of the day, you’re first and foremost Ugandan. We must get our hearts out for our country. The government has limitations with what they cannot do. As a leading partner in the Corporate Society for Safe Motherhood (CSM), our objective is to bring together entities and individuals to support the prevention of preventable maternal and neonatal deaths in Uganda by 2030.”
The CSM was launched in 2020. Speaking on behalf of the Ministry of Health, Dr. John Paul Bagala said, “For us as the Ministry, we see this evolve into something bigger. In our quest to build local philanthropy, where our different stakeholders can really come and work jointly to solve our problems and also hold us accountable. I’m going to brief the Permanent Secretary that we have arranged a closed -door meeting with our female CEOs, with whom we started this journey.”
Dr. Bagala said, “I want to really thank your team led by Diana Ondoga and the other sustainability team. We truly appreciate your act of corporate generosity which you have expressed through these gift-hampers to our staff at Kawempe and Kajjansi hospital. It is a strong gesture of support and recognition of their efforts in ensuring both mother and baby leave this facility in good health.”
