Gender and Women’s Studies Associate Professor Florence Kyomugisha has been selected as a 2011/12 University Research Fellow, one of nine faculty members — one from each College and the University Library — appointed per cycle.
Representing the College of Humanities, Dr. Kyomugisha will dedicate the additional time and resources allocated by the fellowship to continue her work in Uganda, where she and a team of scholars and health providers are researching nutrition information, provisional challenges, and effective skills-building interventions among mothers and children.
Creating Healthier Families and Communities: Mbarara Mothers Project traces its roots to 2007, when the research team identified a need for a dedicated children’s hospital in Uganda. Their goal was realized in 2009 in Mbarara District, Kyomugisha’s childhood home, where Holy Innocents Children’s Hospital became the first hospital in the country focusing on the particular challenges faced by the nation’s children — among them, abnormally high rates of preventable diseases acquired largely through malnutrition.
Kyomugisha’s proposal notes that sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 50% of the world’s child mortality burden while constituting only 11% of its population. Furthermore, Kyomugisha says, the UN Millennium Development Goal found in 2010 that 6 million of the 11 million children who die each year could be saved by “low-tech, cost-effective measures such as simple nutrition interventions.” With her fellowship, Kyomugisha looks forward to continuing her valuable work in Mbarara District, determining nutritional awareness, burdens to access, and realistic routes of intervention among mothers and their children
