The problem
In rural West Nile, preventable illness still takes too much away from families especially where poverty, long distances to services, low health information access and crisis pressures collide. National data shows Uganda is still carrying a heavy burden of child malnutrition and avoidable child deaths even as the country has made progress in recent years. For example, the 2022 UDHS key findings show about 26% of children are stunted (chronic malnutrition) and under-5 mortality is 52 deaths per 1,000 live births.

West Nile is also a major hosting region for refugees and returnees which adds pressure to already stretched community services. UNHCR notes that refugee health services are integrated into district systems through District Health Offices meaning the same facilities serve both host communities and refugee populations.

On top of this, ear and hearing health is a quiet crisis that rarely gets budget attention. WHO estimates over 430 million people live with disabling hearing loss today and projects nearly 2.5 billion will have some degree of hearing loss by 2050.

What Zoota is doing
Zoota is closing the health information gap with community-based prevention, practical education and local accountability. Our approach is built for rural realities, simple messages, trusted voices and repeated follow-up.

We deliver health education and prevention outreach across West Nile communities focusing on the following;

• Hearing health and ear care (including school-based prevention and early referral awareness)
• Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) for young people, girls and young women with survivor-centred safeguarding
• Mental health and psychosocial wellbeing especially for young people, teenage mothers and survivors of violence
• Nutrition, hygiene and WASH basics that reduce household disease risk
• Early health-seeking behaviour and community referral pathways (so families do not wait until it is too late)

So far, we have reached 500+ people with health awareness and prevention messages through our campaigns, including school and community sessions.

Policy and systems advocacy (so the work lasts)
Zoota does not stop at awareness. We document gaps and push local action. Building on our World Hearing Day work, we developed a policy paper calling for hearing health to be treated as a public health priority, integrated into routine community health programming and budgeted for by local leaders because prevention without financing does not hold.

What we will achieve
With support, Zoota’s health and wellbeing work will deliver the following results;

• Increase early care-seeking and reduce preventable illness at household level
• Improve SRHR knowledge and safer choices for girls and young women
• Strengthen community protection and mental wellbeing support especially for survivors and at-risk youth
• Raise hearing health from “ignored” to “planned and budgeted,” with clearer referral paths and school prevention
• Build community-level demand for better services so duty-bearers plan, budget and deliver