Health
Makerere University to showcase Evidence-based Research in Parenting
By Agnes Namaganda
On Thursday 22nd February 2024, Makerere University will hold a symposium to showcase the evidence-based research that has been undertaken in the field of parenting for over 10 years. This symposium will run under the theme, Promoting Child Health by Addressing Parenting and Family Disparities. This will take place from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm at the Yusuf Lule Central Teaching Facility; Makerere University main campus.
Speaking about the symposium, Dr. Godfrey Siu, the Principal Investigator of the program that will host this symposium remarked that, “We are very happy and excited to hold the symposium because we have an opportunity to showcase our work and to share the policy implications with our stakeholders. There are so many stakeholders who know our work and appreciate it for example the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, as well as other NGOs. The University community, in particular, has not had a great interaction with our work and so we would like to bring the symposium to the university so we can inform them about what is happening in the area of parenting research.”
Dr. Siu is a Senior Lecturer at the Child Health and Development Centre (CHDC) which is in the School of Medicine within the College of Health Sciences. He heads the Families, Parenting and Children’s Health Program at CHDC. In collaboration with her partners, CHDC has been working on the development, evaluation and scaling up of parenting programmes through five main projects;
- Parenting for Respectability (PfR) Project (2013 – 2022): The main goal of this project was the prevention of Gender-Based Violence (GBV) and child maltreatment.
- Parenting Agenda Initiative (2019 -2022): The main goal here was to provide a national platform for stakeholders to shape the country’s parenting policy priorities.
- Global Parenting Initiative-Digitalization of the PfR programme: This program is providing free, evidence-based parenting support to every parent, everywhere.
- Going to Scale Project (2023-2026): investing in institutional capacity and systems to support the ongoing standardization of the Ugandan parenting landscape.
- PfR scaling up in Kenya and Tanzania (2017-2025): The goal here is to build capacity of over 50 parenting partners working in clusters in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania.
Dr. Siu called upon the wider university community to attend the symposium for an experience about what CHDC is doing. He said; “This is a great opportunity and we will be happy to see people from the university community including top leaders, researchers and students. We want to showcase this work and we want to give an opportunity to those who share similar research interests within the College of Health Sciences and other colleges to look at what we can do together.” He also appreciated the collaborators including funders operating in the country and outside the country, that have supported this research.
CHDC will hold three other subsequent symposia after this for three consecutive months. The Centre has another program, Technology and Child Health Program, that will also showcase its work in the month of March under the Program Lead, Dr. Herbert Muyinda. The Health Systems Strengthening Programme whose Principal Investigator is Dr. Arthur Mpimbaza will hold the third symposium in the month of April. The last symposium will be hosted by Dr. Anthony Batte and Dr. Aggrey Dhabangi who head the Non-Communicable Diseases among Children Programme at CHDC.
Funding for this activity has been enabled by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. This funding was directed through the Directorate of Research and Graduate Training under the “Consolidating Early-career Academics Programme (CECAP, 2022-2024) at MaK and partner public universities. Dr. Mpimbaza who is a Senior Lecturer at CHDC is a Post Doc Fellow on this grant, through which this CHDC departmental strengthening sub-grant was awarded
About Child Health and Development Centre
To ensure efficiency, the research activities are organized under six research programmes as outlined below;
- Health Systems Strengthening
- Families, Parenting & Child Health
- Non-Communicable Diseases among Children
- Technology and Child Health
- Capacity Building & Training
- Early Childhood Development & Health Outcomes
The Centre currently has a number of research grants in different domains of health research and training. The main areas of focus include disease surveillance – HIV and AIDS, malaria, parenting and child protection, health technology, and knowledge transfer.
By Okeya John and Primrose Nabankema
The intensive one-month course, running for the first time from June 5 to July 24, 2025, is jointly offered by Makerere University School of Public Health (MakSPH)’s Department of Community Health and Behavioural Sciences (CHBS) and the Department of Journalism and Communication (DJC) at the School of Languages, Literature, and Communication (SLLC), co-designed in 2024 with support from the Rockefeller Foundation through Amref Health Africa.
It seeks to equip healthcare providers at the community level, public health and environmental health practitioners, communication specialists, health educators, community development officers, social scientists, and policy makers, among others, with strategic communication skills to improve public health messaging, strengthen community engagement, and support evidence-based interventions, ultimately empowering participants to effectively engage communities and improve population health outcomes across Uganda and the region.
Launching the course, the heads of the Department of Journalism and Communication and the Department of Community Health and Behavioural Sciences noted that participants who complete the short course will gain practical tools to influence behaviour change, build trust, and deliver timely, accurate, and relevant health information to the communities they serve. The first cohort attracted more than 60 applicants, with 36 reporting for the opening in-person session on June 5, 2025, at MakSPH in Mulago. Between now and July, participants will undergo a hands-on, multidisciplinary learning experience within the Certificate in Health Communication and Community Engagement program, which combines theory and practice.
Among the participants in the first cohort of the certificate course, designed as a pilot for the anticipated Master of Health Promotion and Communication to be jointly offered by the two departments at Makerere University, is Ms. Maureen Kisaakye, a medical laboratory technologist specialising in microbiology and antimicrobial resistance (AMR), and currently pursuing a Master’s in Immunology and Clinical Microbiology at Makerere. She is driven by a passion to help reverse the rising tide of AMR, a growing global health threat where drugs that once worked are no longer effective. Kisaakye is particularly concerned about common infections, like urinary tract infections, becoming increasingly resistant and harder to treat.
“I enrolled in this course because I’m an advocate against antimicrobial resistance, and it came at a time when I needed to deepen my knowledge on how to implement our projects more effectively and engage with communities. The experience has broadened my understanding of AMR and its impact on society, and strengthened my passion for community-driven health initiatives and advocacy,” Kisaakye said, explaining why she enrolled for the short course.
Kisaakye’s work in antimicrobial resistance extends beyond the lab. Having earned her degree in medical laboratory science from Mbarara University of Science and Technology, she founded Impala Tech Research in 2024 to drive impact and save lives. She has led grassroots AMR campaigns that integrate antimicrobial stewardship with water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) education in underserved urban communities, including the informal settlements in Kampala. She also has since designed peer-led initiatives that empower university students as AMR Champions, building a network of informed youth advocates. Kisaakye believes the health communication course will sharpen her ability to design and deliver impactful, community-centred interventions in response to the growing threat of drug resistance.
“The department collaborates with many partners within and beyond the University, including the School of Public Health, where we are working to develop the subfield of health communication and promotion. Our goal is to train specialists in this area and build a community of practice, something we have each been doing in our own spaces. There’s a lot of work ahead, and COVID-19 showed us just how urgently we need a generation trained to do this kind of work, and to do it very well,” said Dr. Aisha Nakiwala, Head of the Department of Journalism and Communication, during the opening of the short course on June 5.
She assured participants they were in good hands and underscored the importance of the partnership between the Department of Journalism and Communication and the School of Public Health, describing it as a vital collaboration that brings together strategic communication and public health expertise. This dynamic, multidisciplinary approach, she noted, is essential to developing practical solutions that empower communities, strengthen health systems, and ultimately improve livelihoods.
The course offers a hands-on, multidisciplinary learning experience, with participants intended to explore key modules including Health Communication and Promotion, Risk Communication, Smart Advocacy, Community Mapping, Community Mobilisation and Empowerment, and Strategies for Community Engagement. The course combines theory with real-world application, and its assessment includes a field-based project and a final exam.
“You are our first cohort. We are seeing the fruits of our efforts in bringing this short course to life. It was born out of a joint initiative to develop a Master’s programme in Health Promotion and Communication,” said Dr. Christine Nalwadda, Head of the Department of Community Health and Behavioural Sciences. “We carried out extensive consultations with our different key stakeholders during the process and discovered a real need for such a course. It was the stakeholders who even named it; this course name didn’t come from us.”
For Kisaakye, by the end of the course in July, she hopes to have sharpened her skills in health promotion and strategic communication, particularly in crafting targeted messages that help individuals and communities effectively respond to threats such as antimicrobial resistance. She also aims to gain practical experience in designing, implementing, and evaluating community health initiatives that can strengthen her advocacy and drive lasting impact.
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