A Story of Change in Ward 17 Bolo

The Situation

Ward 17 in Filabusi has no clinic and had no established means of providing medical assistance to the 5 villages in its vicinity. This left the villagers with no alternatives but to travel over 50km to the Filabusi district hospital which is the closest hospital to the ward. This brought about major difficulties especially for women in the villages who are much more in need of frequent medical assistance than men. Women in the ward had difficulties in traveling to the hospital for labor, for infancy checkups (immunizations and weighing), SRHR (access to birth control) and general access to relevant medication for instance women on antiretroviral treatment. The steep costs and poor accessibility of transport for travelling to the district hospital made frequent but necessary visits to the hospital unfeasible hence affecting women and children’s quality of life in the ward.

Our Intervention

The Response

Upon observing these hardships, the advocacy action team members from Bolo Ward 17 approached the Village head, Mr. S. Dube and notified him of these challenges. The village head then notified the team that he could provide them with land on which a clinic could erected and referred them to the IRDC (Insiza Rural District Council) who could facilitate and provide funds for the construction of the clinic. The IRDC however, stated that they could not facilitate the clinics construction as they had no funds necessary but they would be able to provide the Ward with a labour force. The advocacy members were referred to the Ward 17 MP, the honourable F. Taruvinga who pledged 600bags of cement, solar power infrastructure and the resuscitation of a borehole which was on the allocated 200x200m construction site. The advocacy team members finally approached the Filabusi district hospital for the provision of a mobile clinic, however they referred the team to the Family Planning Council in Bulawayo which has been providing a mobile clinic once a month since January 2021 till date.

The Results

The allocated construction site has since been cleared and the community members were tasked with molding bricks, which is set to commence by the end of July 2021.