Chaplain: a Personal Statement

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Personal statement – Chaplain Lukojo

I am interested to study a Masters in Public Health - Health Promotion because I want to be a Public Health specialist. I want to contribute to the development and expansion of the public health systems in the Republic of South Sudan, which were destroyed by 20 years of civil war.

The organisation I work for, GOAL, aims to improve the health status of the poorest and most vulnerable, through the provision of accessible and affordable comprehensive primary health care and emergency response. GOAL also works on health system strengthening by building the capacity of the South Sudan Ministry of Health and the Water, Environment and Sanitation Directorates. 

I have been engaged in leadership at various levels that ranged from voluntary initiatives to paid jobs. I was elected as volunteer chairperson of the Makerere University Sudanese Students association in the period 1998 -1999. The objective of the association was to advocate for increased enrolment of potential Sudanese Refugee students to higher institutions of learning and to be a representative body that discussed internal welfare issues affecting the Sudanese Refugees students in Makerere University. My overall responsibility was to guide the association to achieve its objectives. We organised joint students’ graduation parties for Sudanese students annually, we invited Sudanese students from secondary schools and other Universities and we met representatives of potential donors and Sudanese diplomatic missions in Kampala.

Every vacation we would travel to the refugee settlements to teach in their secondary schools. This was our voluntary contribution to support our fellow refugees to get quality education to compete favourably for entrance to higher education. This initiative had a large positive impact on the enrolment of the Sudanese refugees to higher institutions of learning. We were positive role models who shared our own experiences and encouraged the students from secondary schools to study hard to achieve good grades so they could compete for the limited University scholarships.

I also initiated a voluntary community project to address the gaps in girls’ education. I mobilised a village in South Sudan to participate in the project and helped to raise funds with the community to build the school.  After I approached the government they agreed to include the teachers on a government pay roll, which meant the school could open and education for girls could begin. Initially, we enrolled thirty five pupils but eight years later there are over three hundred and fifty from class one to seven. So far six groups of candidates have passed through this institution and secured places in good secondary schools. Now the committee, government and school administration are working together to sustain the project. My involvement in this community project was a turning point in my career, it increased my knowledge and allowed me to improve my skills of community engagement. Since then I have had two jobs that involved community programming, including my present position of Community Health Coordinator for GOAL, covering activities across four sites.

At present, we are in the process of shifting from the use of simple health education (providing information on key health topics) to a behaviour change and communication approach for health promotion. Adopting this strategy requires a change in the practice and attitude of everyone, starting with the staff and moving right down to the beneficiaries. I strongly hope to gain a variety of skills and tools to guide our health promotion approach more effectively and by taking up this course I hope to be able to further my community engagement skills in public health promotion. I also hope to be able to share my stories, and the challenges I have overcome in the past, and how they have enabled me to improve my work, and to share experiences with other students about how things work in this part of the world.

I know I have the academic capacity to cope with this course as I have completed an undergraduate course taught in English in the past without difficulties. I also studied English language as a subject and wrote a dissertation on ‘Family-Job roles conflict among women working in Uganda’ as a requirement for the award of a Bachelor of Sciences degree at Makerere University, Uganda.

For the last eight years I have participated in a number of courses that utilised participatory workshop methods. I also participated in a training of trainers where I learnt to assess training needs, develop training curriculum, coordinate trainings and facilitate learning sessions. I consequently led training teams in the use of these participatory methods whilst conducting surveys for my organisation. All the above reasons are why my organisation has highly recommended me for this course.

I have been accepted on to a Masters in Public Health - Health Promotion course in the UK at Leeds Metropolitan University. The length of study, one full year, is convenient for me and the quality of teaching and materials are known to be excellent. I am committed to return to South Sudan to apply the skills and knowledge to serve the people of South Sudan and to help them overcome the extreme poverty they find themselves in after decades of conflict. I have earned the trust of institutions and also the government who have supported me in the past to study abroad. These institutions include the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees that offered me a nine-year full scholarship to study in Uganda from 1990 to 1999, covering secondary & high school level and bachelor’s level. The proviso was that I had to return to serve in South Sudan as soon as peace returned. I can say I have met that promise.

Lokujo Chaplain