Improving access to healthcare for 70,000 people in Eastern Uganda
Empower Through Health
Empower Through Health is a
501(c)3 nonprofit health care organization
What We Do
Healthcare
Mpunde Health Center addresses the medical needs of rural communities by providing affordable, world-class care to those who otherwise would not have access.
Our catchment area consists of 54 villages, in a district with one full-time physician for a population of over 400,000.
As of January 2023 we have treated over 30,000 patients by providing outpatient care, childhood vaccines, mass drug administration (MDA) deworming campaigns, maternal and child care, deliveries, and mental health services.
Research
ETH's team of academicians, public health experts, and multicultural data collectors seek to bring to light neglected conditions and find innovative, sustainable solutions to manage and treat diseases of poverty.
Our community-centered approach is based on direct collaboration with over 100 local community health volunteers, called VHTs, to identify the health needs of the communities we serve.
Our multidisciplinary ETH team has published several manuscripts in reputable, peer-reviewed scientific journals in areas of mental health, infectious disease, and emergency medicine.
Education
ETH seeks to identify, inspire, and nurture future leaders in global health through its Global Health Institute, in which passionate, exceptional individuals can work together to address some of humanity's most pressing problems.
Our Summer Fellowships seek to expose students from a variety of cultures, backgrounds, and life experiences to the pressing need for global leaders, through immersive, multicultural experiences in ground research, intervention science, and clinical care.
ETH has helped train dozens of students at all levels of educational training, including undergraduates, medical and MPH students, and even high schoolers.
Our Story
We founded Empower Through Health under the belief that no matter who we are or where we come from, there is more that unites us than separates us.
Parents all over the world toil to ensure the well-being of their children; we all take solace in the comfort of family and community; the smile and warmth that we feel upon seeing a sunset or embracing a loved one is shared throughout the world.
We all are united by our common humanity and our quest for dignity, companionship, and purpose. We believe that all human life is precious and equal; that we should all be able to live in good health; to have agency to determine and manifest the futures we want.
However, there are gross inequalities and injustices in the global order. The district in which we work, Buyende District, located in Eastern Uganda, has a population of over 400,000 but only one practicing clinical physician. There is nowhere in the district in which patients can obtain blood work. Children routinely die of infectious diseases and perpetually combat untreated parasitic infections and malnutrition. Mothers in this district die from routine childbirth at a rate of 300 times greater than in the US.
These facts are unfathomable and unjustifiable in the globalized 21st century, where futuristic treatments are not only possible but commonplace in many parts of the world.
Drawing upon our intercultural strength, we seek to be advocates and healers for those who up to now have been left out of the global system.
Since our inception, ETH has treated over 30,000 patients. We bring modern, affordable healthcare to the places in the world that need them most. Our innovative, scalable public health and research projects are improving the scientific community's understanding of this understudied research population, as well as modeling high impact, community-driven, evidence-based interventions, all with the goal of improving community health and addressing global inequity. To date, we have published multiple research manuscripts in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
We aim to educate future leaders in global health by using the expertise we have developed as a multicultural, interdisciplinary team from years of on-the-ground implementation science work, as well as relying on the network of global health experts we have spent years developing. We have educated dozens of students from both the US and Uganda through our immersive summer fellowship programming.
While we are incredibly proud of our team's accomplishments we firmly believe this is only the beginning. We are constantly searching for new ways to expand the scope and impact of our work.
From the bottom of our hearts, we are so grateful to you for being a part of our work.
Thank you.
The ETH Team