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<p>The overall objectives of this thesis were to assess the theory and evaluate the development roles of MFIs in Uganda and Bangladesh. The study in particular focussed on MFIs impact on poverty reduction, empowering women, promoting health, as well as promoting children's education in Uganda and Bangladesh. The study preferred the selected countries because Bangladesh is internationally considered as the best practice for microfinance, whilst Uganda is assumed to be well-positioned in terms of microfinance as compared to other developing countries in Africa. The question that guided this empirical investigation was whether MFIs empower women, reduce poverrty, promote children's education as well as health among its beneficiaries in Uganda and whether Bangladesh has important lessons of experience for Uganda.</p>

This was a study of rural community literacy practices in Uganda. I used the social practices theory of literacy as a theoretical framework to investigate literacy use in rural community life in Bweyale. The social practices theory of literacy sees literacy as variable social practice that can only be understood within the social context of its use. Consistent with the social practices theoretical perspective and following similar research traditions in this area of literacy study, I used ethnographic research methods to collect data and grounded theory methods to analyse data on literacy use in Bweyale. The study revealed that rural people, contrary to popular perceptions about their illiteracy and hence lack of literacy, actually use reading and writing in a variety of ways in different domains of literacy use. Literacy pervades most aspects of rural community life, making rural people use literacy in many rich and creative ways. Most people, regardless of their literacy status, participate in local literacy practices. The most prominent areas of literacy use in rural community life are livelihood activities, education, religion, bureaucracy, household life, and personal life. The study also found that the conception of literacy among rural people in Bweyale is similar to the dominant conception of literacy. In this conception, literacy is seen as equal to education and/or schooling and it relates to modernity. Rural people see literacy as a valuable and important aspect of life. The literacy they value most is the dominant English language literacy. This is due to the multilingual nature of Uganda and the national language policy that made English the dominant language of literacy even in rural community life. The use of English literacy is also reinforced by its use as the language of instruction in Uganda’s education system where most people learn how to read and write. This dominance of English complicates literacy use in rural community life because it brings in the need for translation, especially when people who do not understand English are involved in a literacy event. It also complicates local language literacy learning. The use of English is closely associated with the dominant non-traditional activities like school education, the police service, modern trade practices, and to some extent, Christian religious practices. Local language literacy is mainly used when communicating information relating to traditional activities, for example, traditional medicinal practices or for personal use. The study recommends that adult literacy education curricula should be tailored to the local literacy practices of the people for whom the literacy programmes are being developed. This will help to make the literacy programmes immediately relevant to the everyday literacy practices of the learners’ community. The programmes should promote literacy use in the community by exploring new areas of literacy use in rural community life. These are areas in which the use of literacy could lead to better management of some activities in rural community life. In all, rural people are literate in ways that are not acknowledged in dominant literacy thinking and hence even by rural people themselves. This way of thinking must be discouraged. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2008.

This was a comparative study of FAL and REFLECT'S adult literacy facilitator training processes in Uganda. It was based on the government's Functional Adult Literacy (FAL) programme, and Action Aid Uganda's (AAU) REFLECT Programmes.The purpose of this study was to: Find out the similarities and differences between the FAL and REFLECT facilitator training process. Establish how FAL and REFLECT facilitator training is organised. Establish how FAL and REFLECT facilitators are selected for training. Identify the teaching and learning materials used for training FAL and REFLECT literacy facilitators. Find out how the trained facilitators of FAL and REFLECT feel about the training and the approach they have been trained to use. Establish the kind of post training support arrangements provided for the trained adult literacy facilitators under FAL and REFLECT. These issues were all raised in the form of research questions and answered by the study. A qualitative research study was used to address the research questions. This included the use of focus group discussions, key informant interviews, questionnaires, direct observation and documentary analysis. The findings of this study are presented in chapter four under various headings applicable to both FAL and REFLECT. These are: the ideological view of literacy, selection of trainees and trainers, the training programmes, the training materials, funding for the training, employment arrangements after training, post training support arrangements, and evaluation of the training programme. From the findings, a general conclusion was drawn that the training processes of FAL and REFLECT were similar in the areas of organisation of the training programmes, selection of trainees, the sources of funding for the training programmes, deployment of trainees and evaluation of the training. Differences were found in the ideology which informs the two literacy approaches and therefore the training programmes for the literacy facilitators, the training methods and materials used and the post training support arrangements made for the trained literacy facilitators. The study concludes that the FAL and REFLECT literacy facilitator training is different. REFLECT has a better approach to training their literacy facilitators than FAL, although both approaches have many areas which should be improved for better training of their literacy facilitators. It was also noted that the differences between FAL and REFLECT occur in areas which are crucial for the success of a training programme and the performance of the trainees. This could explain the difference in the performance and effectiveness of the programmes using the two approaches. The recommendations call for serious attention to be given to the training of adult literacy facilitators to ensure that only qualified people are entrusted with the work of teaching adult literacy. / Thesis (M.Ed.) - University of Natal, Durban, 2002.

Graduate

SAMMANFATTNING Hälsan påverkas av många olika faktorer var av vissa inte är möjliga att påverka, där ibland ålder, kön och medfödda tillstånd. Livsstilsfaktorer är möjliga att påverka men socioekonomiska-, kulturella- och miljömässiga faktorer kan vara svåra att påverka som individ. Socioekonomiska faktorer som inkomst och utbildning påverkar kvinnors hälsa i större utsträckning då kvinnor är mer sårbara jämfört med män, särskilt i låginkomstländer. Syfte: Syftet med studien var att undersöka hur Ugandiska kvinnor upplevelse sin hälsa, vilka faktorer de tror påverkar den, om de gör något för att förbättra sin hälsa samt om de oroar sig över sin hälsa. Metod: Studien var en explorerande kvalitativ intervjustudie. Intervjuerna var semistrukturerade och 16 kvinnor blev intervjuade i Kampala, Uganda. Inklusionskriterierna för att delta var att kvinnorna skulle vara 18 år eller äldre och att de inte led av någon allvarlig sjukdom eller begränsning som gjorde det svårt att förstå och delta i studien. Resultat: Fyra teman identifierades under analysen; ”Upplevelsen av hälsa är individuell”;”Att oroa sig påverkar hälsan negativt”; ”Hälsan påverkas av många olika faktorer” och ”Små handlingar kan förbättra hälsan om du har tid och pengar”. Kvinnorna i studien upplevde generellt god hälsa. Dålig hälsa beskrevs på grund av ålder, upplevelser av våld i nära relation samt brist på pengar för att kunna köpa HIV-medicin. Olika faktorer påverkade kvinnornas hälsa där majoriteten av kvinnorna nämnde bristen av pengar som en viktig faktor Slutsats: Ugandiska kvinnor upplevde generellt sin hälsa som bra. Det förekom att kvinnorna upplevde god hälsa trots att de levde med en allvarlig sjukdom, som hypertension eller HIV. Detta stämmer överens med WHO:s hälsodefinition samt Benner and Wrubel's omvårdnadsteori, som båda nämner att god hälsa inte bara är beroende av frånvaron av sjukdom utan också den individuella upplevelsen av hälsa och välbefinnande. Kvinnorna oroade sig över sin hälsa och pengar togs upp som en faktor som hade stor inverkan på deras hälsa. Studiens resultat stödjer att vissa hälsofaktorer är svåra att påverka som en individ, vilket gör det viktigt för sjukvårdspersonal att ha ett holistiskt förhållningssätt i mötet med patienten. / ABSTRACT Various factors affect the health and some of them are impossible to prevent, among them are age, sex and constitutional conditions. Lifestyle factors are possible to influence but socioeconomic-, cultural- and environmental factors can be hard to prevent as an individual. Socioeconomic factors as income and education affect women's health to a large extent since they are more vulnerable compared to men, especially in low-income countries. Purpose: The aim of the study was to explore how Ugandan women experience their health, the factors they think affects it, if they do anything to improve their health and if they have any worries about their health. Method: The study was an explorative qualitative interview study. The interviews were semi-structured and 16 women were interviewed in Kampala, Uganda. The selection criteria's for the study were that the women should be 18 years and above and that they didn't suffer from severe illness or some disability that made it hard to understand and participate in the study. Results: Four themes where identified during the analyse; ”Experiences of health are individual”, ”Worrying affect your health in a bad way”, "Health is determined by many different factors ” and ”Small actions can improve your health if you have time and money”. The results showed that the women in the study experienced their health as generally good. Poor health was described because of problems of ageing, experience of domestic violence or lack of money for HIV-treatment. Different factors affected the women's health and most of them mentioned the lack of money as an important factor. Conclusion: Ugandan women express their health as good in general. It occurred that the women expressed good health even if they were living with a severe disease, such as hypertension or HIV. This consists with WHO's definition about health and Benner and Wrubel's nursing theory, which both mentions that good health is not only about the absence of disease but also about the individual experience about health. The women were worried about their health. Lack of money was brought up as a factor that had a great impact on their health. The findings of this study also support that some health-factors are hard to influence as an individual, which makes it important for healthcare workers to have an holistic approach in the meating with the patient.

Research has clearly shown that all individuals will benefit from regular physical activity. Unfortunately, young adults including college and university students are not physically active on a regular basis worldwide. In the developing world particularly in Sub- Saharan Africa, physical inactivity along with tobacco use, poor diet and nutrition are increasingly parts of today&rsquo / s lifestyle. Physical activity declines with age and the most important decline appear to be during the transition period from high school to university and during university years. The aim of this study was to assess the level of physical activity, to investigate the perceived constraints to physical activity and to determine whether socio-demographic characteristic have an influence on participation in physical activity and perceived constraints to physical activity among paramedical institutions students in Uganda. A cross-sectional study with descriptive quantitative design was conducted. Four hundred (400) paramedical institution students were selected using a stratified random sampling technique. A self-administered questionnaire adopted from the literature was used to collect the data. A response rate of 90% was obtained. Descriptive and inferential statistics using the statistical package for social sciences were used to analyze the data. The relationships and associations between different variables were determined by carrying out significant tests using chi-square tests. Alpha level was set at 0.05. The mean age of the sample was 22.44 years (SD = 2.03). Males constituted 73.9% and females constituted 26.1% of the sample. Students from eight (8) health professional courses participated in the study. Over half (59%) of participants were classified as physically active and 41% were classified as inactive or sedentary. For male participants, lack of the right equipment to exercise and wanting to do other things in their free time were perceived as the major constraints to physical activity. For female participants, lack of motivation and tiredness after exercise were perceived as the major constraints to physical activity. The findings of this study demonstrate that there is an influence of socio-demographic characteristics such as gender, year of the study and different departments/schools on participation in physical activity and perceived constraints to physical activity. They also indicate the need of health promotion intervention aiming at promoting physical activity among paramedical institution students in Uganda.

Maternal and child-health and health education are three major concerns of public health organisations and researchers throughout the world. Health education for mothers is a strategy many countries have adopted to improve maternal and child-health. The present study was carried out in Uganda with the objective of exploring the factors influencing the utilisation of postnatal services at Mulago and Mengo hospitals, a government and private hospital. Both hospitals are located in Kampala district in Uganda. The survey, was completed by 330 women who responded to a structured questionnaire that was given to them six to eight weeks after delivery. Questions that were asked generated demographic information about the mothers / mothers&rsquo / knowledge about postnatal services / mothers&rsquo / socio-economic status and barriers to utilisation of the postnatal services. The participants included all women who delivered in Mulago and Mengo hospitals in November 2003 except for those who had had a neonatal death. The data was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Some of the key findings of the study were that most women lacked awareness about postnatal services and those who knew about these services only knew about immunisation and family planning services. The majority of the mothers did not know about other services, such as physiotherapy, counselling, growth monitoring, and physical examination. Lack of money for transport or service costs, distance from the health care facility, not being aware of the services, lack of somebody to take care of the child at home were some of the main barriers to utilisation of postnatal services. Others included, lack of education, lack of employment, lack of decision-making powers, and lack of time to go back for the service. The ministry of health should educate women and communities about the importance of postnatal care, its availability, and the importance of women having decision-making power over their own health. The health service organization should improve on the quality of care by ensuring that services are provided at convenient hours with privacy, confidentiality and respect and it should evaluate the services periodically from the users perspective to maintain the quality of service.

<p>The overall objectives of this thesis were to assess the theory and evaluate the development roles of MFIs in Uganda and Bangladesh. The study in particular focussed on MFIs impact on poverty reduction, empowering women, promoting health, as well as promoting children's education in Uganda and Bangladesh. The study preferred the selected countries because Bangladesh is internationally considered as the best practice for microfinance, whilst Uganda is assumed to be well-positioned in terms of microfinance as compared to other developing countries in Africa. The question that guided this empirical investigation was whether MFIs empower women, reduce poverrty, promote children's education as well as health among its beneficiaries in Uganda and whether Bangladesh has important lessons of experience for Uganda.</p>

Diss. Uppsala : Uppsala universitet, 2007.