We would like to offer a huge thank-you to all supporters as we celebrate the end of our 20 Peak Challenge! 

In 2003 Dr Scott Kellerman set up a clinic under a tree to provide healthcare to a neglected local hunter-gatherer community called the Batwa who had been displaced from their ancestral home. However, it was soon realised that high quality and effective healthcare was needed for all the local population and not just the Batwa community. Twenty-one years later, Bwindi Community Hospital is a well-established and valued community hospital serving the healthcare needs of all members of the local community.  It also improves healthcare throughout Uganda by training nurses, midwives and clinical officers in its nursing and clinical officer schools.

To celebrate Bwindi Community Hospital turning 20 last year, members and supporters of REACH Bwindi have been hiking 20 hills to represent each year of Bwindi Community Hospital since its inception. 

Why climbing hills?

REACH Bwindi is passionate about providing effective and accessible healthcare. We wanted to highlight the incredible work of Bwindi Community Hospital’s community team, supporting 101 villages in their hilly and remote catchment area. Not all of the villages are able to be accessed by road.  Instead, the community team must hike up often slippery muddy slopes in humid conditions to bring healthcare to the most remote and vulnerable communities, carrying healthcare supplies on their backs.  The teams provide these communities with essential healthcare and health prevention and have been instrumental in effecting a dramatic improvement in health outcomes in the area. 

Read this blog here at the launch of the challenge to find out more about how the community team support the local population and the benefits they bring.

Supporters and their families and friends hiked hills small and large from Uganda to the very north of Scotland.  We started off in Bwindi in July 2023, with volunteers Fran and Tim together with the hospital Executive Director Dr Asaph Owamukama in the heat of the day accompanied by plentiful insects  – and other people, including children, who herd goats and grow crops on the very steep-sided hills around Bwindi.  Ros with friends joined in and trekked across Scotland, discovering beautiful hikes in Kilmelford, Ardfern, Crinan Woods, the Campsies, Kilpatrick and Wester Fowlis.  Tim’s mum Marian with a group of friends covered 25 hills including Tinto, Conic and Pentland hills, Ben Lomond, Miekle Bin, Easdale Tarn’s ridge, Hom Crag and Snowy Hill.

 A huge thank you to everyone who took part in and supported this challenge!  All together, you helped us to raise over £3000 (including Gift Aid)!   This has already gone directly to the Community Team back in Bwindi where it is supporting their work up and down the hills where we started. 

But this story is far from over! Introducing the REACH Bwindi Twinning Project

For the time we have been part of REACH Bwindi, we have had the privilege of regular meetings where we have heard directly from the Hospital about its amazing work in remote villages, and the real difference it is making to peoples’ lives.  We would love to share this privilege with you by offering a closer connection with those you have been supporting through REACH Bwindi. 

By twinning with a village, you would receive up-to-date information about the kind of work your support is going towards.  More information can be found at our page: Twinning Project.

To sign up, please email us with the village you would like to keep up with, and set up a regular donation via the Charities Aid Foundation (£10/month through https://cafdonate.cafonline.org/9930).  Alternatively, you can support a village with a team, from your organisation, GP Practice or hospital department for example, for £50/month. 

Please include in your email the name and address of the person or organisation you would like the certificate sent to.  You will then receive your certificate of twinning and 6 monthly updates which will include information on the activities of the community health team as a whole and an individual update on the village you are twinned with.