Kate speaks of Uganda

Out of Africa

At their February 2014 post-meeting dinner, Cardiff Circle was very pleased to welcome back Kate Adams, a student at Cardiff University, who had been given a Bursary Award last year to enable her to travel to Uganda to work in the Benedictine Eye Hospital in Tororo. Kate and her fellow volunteer Laura Heylin told Circle how they had helped train hospital staff who had equipment that they did not know how to use. They encountered eye problems that would be detected much earlier in the UK and found that the local thought was that you would go blind at 40 years of age when all that was required in fact were reading glasses. The volunteers also encountered eye conditions that would not be seen in the UK and found that it is common for the local witch doctor to prescribe cow dung for some eye problems. Kate thanked the Association for the Bursary award she had been given, without which she would have been unable to fund her visit.

Kate and Laura address the Circle