Engeye and the UN Millennium Development Goals
The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) - which range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education, all by the target date of 2015 - form a blueprint agreed to by all the world's countries and all the world's leading development institutions. They have galvanized unprecedented efforts to meet the needs of the world's poorest.
Engeye is doing its best to make the UN Millennium Development Goals (UN MDGs) a reality for the Ugandans that we work with in and around our health center in Ddegeya Village. The UN MDGs are a diverse set of goals, but are all intertwined to the point where it is impossible to affect change without addressing all the issues of poverty, health care, hunger, and environmental sustainability. This is how Engeye is helping...
1. Eradicate Extreme Hunger and Poverty
- Needs Assessments in nearby vicinity assess the largest needs in the community
- Chicken project started in attempt to increase egg (protein) and income generation potential
- Healthy eating habits are discussed during visits with the physician when malnutrition is evident
- Community workers work with kids on nutritious gardening co-ops to vary diet
2. Achieve Universal Primary Education
- Engeye Scholars established to provide education to those who cannot afford primary schooling
- Morning Program, started by Union Minerva fellows, teaches children who are too young or too poor to attend school
- Educational center built for health and education classes
3. Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women
- Female scholarships are empowering young, blossoming Ugandan women (Engeye Scholars)
- Females are employed at Engeye Clinic
- Advancing the crafts of local women artisans is a project in the works
- Susan Nabukenya healed, empowered and now in school
4. Reduce Child Mortality 
This goal is italicized and highlighted because it is an area in which Uganda is falling behind and thus a focus for Engeye
- Engeye Health Clinic built and in operation with locals staffing clinic year-round
- Diagnosis and treatment protocols and algorithms created to improve medical care and patient outcomes
- First-line malaria treatment given to all patients, including children - Coartem (artemether/lumefantrine)
- Diagnostic lab created to expand services and treatment
- Mosquito nets delivered and dispersed
- Electricity advancement to enable refrigeration for vaccinations
- Provide vitamin A supplementation to children 6 months - 5 years to prevent blindness and serious illness (WHO recommendation)
- Deworm children 12 months and older every 6 months (WHO recommendation)
- Triage children to local government hospital when they are too sick to remain under our care
- Partners with Uganda Cares, an HIV/AIDS organization, who provides ARVs to those in need, but also to pregnant women, thereby decreasing the mother-to-child transmission of HIV
5. Improve Maternal Health 
This goal is italicized and highlighted because it is an area in which Uganda is falling behind and thus a focus for Engeye
- Engeye Health Clinic built and in operation with locals staffing clinic year-round
- Diagnosis and treatment protocols and algorithms created to improve medical care and patient outcomes
- Offer prenatal care to women in the village
- Dispense affordable and effective forms of birth control to women in the village
- Partners with Engeye Scholars, an organization that assists children in school, but also helps to see the girls through primary and secondary school, which raises pregnancy and health awareness, delays the age of child bearing and spaces births further apart
Educating girls for six years or more drastically and consistently improves their prenatal care, postnatal care and childbirth survival rates. Educating mothers also greatly cuts the death rate of children under five. Educated girls have higher self-esteem, are more likely to avoid HIV infection, violence and exploitation, and to spread good health and sanitation practices to their families and throughout their communities. And an educated mother is more likely to send her children to school. - UNICEF
- Treat malaria and iron-deficiency anemia in pregnancy, which helps reduce anemia, a contributing factor to both maternal and neonatal mortality
6. Combat HIV, Malaria, and Other Diseases
- Partners with Uganda Cares, a local HIV/AIDS organization
- Malaria quick tests (rapid diagnostic test - RDT) in use
- Mosquito nets delivered to villagers
- Education on reducing mosquitoes is ongoing
- Free condoms available at the clinic
- First-line malaria treatment in use - Coartem (artemether/lumefantrine)
- Two laboratory technicians employed
- Confirmatory microscopy used for negative or questionable malaria cases via RDT
- RPR testing and confirmatory treponemal tests for diagnosing syphilis
- Wet mount diagnostics started, a surprisingly challenging feat secondary to obstacles with purchasing, mixing and storing the necessary KOH solutions in Uganda
- KOH skin scrapings for dermatologic cases
- Sickle cell testing via microscopy
7. Ensure Environmental Sustainability
- Installed incinerator for safe disposal of medical waste
- Soil and water testing carried out
- Solar panels installed for clean, reliable energy
- Partnership with EWB-MIT forged and environmentally responsible ideas in progress
8. Build a Global Partnership for Development
- In U.S.: Partnerships with various organizations in the United States are allowing for global advancement: Union College, MIT- EWB, AMC Family Medicine, UIC, Providence Hospital, photographer Bryan Meltz and Shriners Hospital in Boston
- In Uganda: Uganda Cares, Uganda Ministry of Health, Rakai Health Sciences Program, Kinoni Health Centre, Tekera Resource Centre, Achon Uganda Children's Fund and Ddegeya Village
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