Betty Kahima
Betty is a rural housewife and a retired midwife. She lives with her husband Kahima, a retired policeman in Masheruka village in Bushenyi district in Southwestern Uganda. They have grown children who no longer live at home, but like most African families they take care of relatives who live with them. The Kahimas are farmers and they practice mixed farming. They have a banana plantation, a coffee shamba, a piggery, local chicken, rabbits, and also grow crops like beans, millet, and a variety of greens.
The Kahima’s home is a few meters away from the village main road in the middle of a banana plantation. The set up is very homey, the first impression you get is of a clean and organized home. The house is a three-bedroom bungalow set in a neat, well-kept compound with a beautiful flower garden. The living room is very nicely furnished with easy chairs and family photos of weddings and graduations are well displayed. In the next room there is the dining area where the family has their meals. Again you notice the emphasis on hygiene as there is a hand washing facility in the corner, clean drinking water, and a well set table with very nice home grown food.
Homestead Opportunity
Homes like the Kahima’s with interesting homestead activities have potential for rural tourism participation. Betty’s initiative, if well highlighted, has the potential to be replicated in other areas both in Uganda and abroad and to inspire other retired professionals to develop their communities by offering essential services related to their past professions. Kahima, a retired policeman, is in charge of security issues in their village.
COBATI selected the Kahima’ s village and homestead to be included in the Home-Stay program. We are sourcing support to empower the family as a village model for homestead tourism, local farming systems, and Betty’s home based domiciliary initiative. The family and surrounding village need training to understand the basics of how tourism works and it’s benefits, how to turn day-to-day living activities into tourism products, training in community guiding, visitor handling, and an upgrade of the toilet facility and lighting to be able to host travelers and provide an enriched and educative village experience while supplementing their household incomes through tourism.
Betty’s village has potential to develop a cluster of tourism attractions. The village has a scenic landscape ideal for scenery viewing, hill climbing and bicycle riding; a traditional wood carver; a women’s basketry and cultural group; and a blacksmith. The village is not far from Uganda’s main tourist circuit which is home to 7 of the 10 national parks of Uganda. Training the Kahima’s, who are already leaders in their community, will ensure
the sustainability of the village tourism program as they will be equipped to train community members and develop networks of home stays.
Support this Project
Your support can help the village and Kahima Homestead prepare to welcome visitors.
We are open to any assistance, but donations would help kick start the training. Then the volunteers can come in the next phase when the village is confident with the concept and the Kahima's have started hosting.
Home Based Domiciliary
Betty Kahima is a midwife. After years of being woken up late in the night by desperate husbands from her village and neighboring areas seeking assistance for their wives undergoing labor pains, Betty realized there was a gap in her community that could be filled by her midwifery skills. She wanted to provide a service to her community but lack of space was a problem.
An opportunity came when the family moved to a new house. Betty, with support from her family, turned the old house into a domiciliary and got a license to operate a home-based domiciliary at her homestead.
What used to be the living room is now a village drug shop, Betty sells non-prescription drugs such as for first aid, cough, headache, balms, and she is an agent for family planning and child immunization services. Former bedrooms now have two beds and baby cots. After delivery, mothers are kept for observation overnight. Complicated cases are referred to the district main hospital. The master bedroom was renovated and turned into a delivery room. It is amazingly clean with a delivery bed similar to the one in hospitals. There is a big plastic bucket well covered for storing the delivery instruments, are clean gowns, gloves, gum boots, protective mouth and head covers etc. After delivery, Betty used to take the instruments to a government referral hospital 30 km away for sterilization. But she has now acquired a gas cooker with support from her son, so she does the sterilization at home. Waste materials from the delivery are disposed off in a special place in the banana plantation. Betty’s husband assisted in the construction of a very deep hole covered with a tight fitting cement lid under a corrugated iron sheet rooftop. The hole is kept very clean; Betty’s husband regularly prepares ash from special herbs to purify it and there is no smell at all.
Maria first visited Betty in 2000, and when she went back three years later, there was a lot of improvement. With approval and training from the
district health authority, Betty added child immunization and HIV/AIDS counseling and testing to her services. Betty is now offering HIV/AIDS positive
women the opportunity to deliver healthy babies with dignity, as they are comfortable with her. HIV/AIDS positive women sometimes face prejudice and discrimination in some hospitals during delivery and the post-natal period.
Betty and her husband have many roles in their home and community. On an ordinary day as farmers, you will find Kahima feeding the pigs and selling chicken to the village butcher. Betty will be either drying coffee or working in the clinic. She often wears a white coat similar to the one worn by medical personnel with a stethoscope around her neck as she delivers a baby, counsels and tests a couple intending to marry for HIV, or immunizes babies.
Homestead Preparation
The following work is needed to prepare a tourism village cluster around the Kahima Homestead.
- Conduct 3 village needs assessment visits to sensitize the community, seek their views, and assess their potential: $ 100 each X 3 = $300
- Design a training program and prepare training materials: $150
- Conduct 6 outreach/on spot training workshops for 10 people (Betty’s family, neighbors, and community leaders): 10 people cost $30 per person per day - $1,800 (this includes transport, handouts, day study tour, trainer fees)
- Design information materials (flyers and brochures): $80
- Design signage information and produce 3 signposts /roadside/homestead/village signage: $150
The community’s input towards the training will include:
- The Kahima’ will host all the trainings at their homestead.
- The participating families will contribute and prepare food.