We fund practical projects that put resources directly into local hands: training healthcare workers, supporting local health facilities, and backing the people and organisations working toward the same goals across the region.
As medical students, Keelan and Dito spent time at Bwindi Community Hospital in South-West Uganda, and saw first-hand the extraordinary work being done there, often with a fraction of the resources available at home.
Over that time, the two of us built friendships, and found we shared a goal: to come back, and help build something that would last. Child Health Matters is the result.
Child Health Matters exists to preserve and protect health in Ruhija, Uganda, and the communities around it. In practice, that means looking for opportunities to work directly with local people, improve local health services and schools, and collaborate with experienced, innovative NGOs already working in the region — all in service of improving the health and the day-to-day lives of the people who live there. We're not trying to run everything ourselves. We're trying to back the people who already are.
"To preserve and protect the health of the public in Ruhija, Uganda, in particular by providing grants to support or assist in the provision of local health facilities and centres, outreach programmes and public health education."
We helped establish the training partnership between NICHE International, Bwindi Community Hospital and the Uganda Nursing School Bwindi, connecting international training expertise with the clinicians and institutions already doing the work on the ground — and we continue to fund their work today.
Since 2022, that funding has trained over 200 health workers and qualified a dozen as instructors in their own right, several of whom now teach independently, with no international faculty in the room.
The goal is to train healthcare professionals to improve the care newborns receive and reduce the number of babies who die. The principle behind how we do it is different: to empower local professionals through education, giving them the opportunity to become world-class educators and instructors — accredited to run courses independently, with robust governance behind them. NICHE's own 10 steps to sustainability is the staged framework that gets us there.
Our next concrete commitment is this autumn's trip to Bwindi: two Neonatal Care Courses and a Generic Instructor Course for 16 candidates. This isn't the final push — it's part of a wider goal to make Ruhija the first area to complete NICHE's 10 steps to sustainability, by accelerating funding and increasing the number of local instructors.
The aim isn't to keep funding this indefinitely. It's to invest now, while it counts, so that locally trained clinicians can run the training themselves with minimal outside input or cost — with a reach that extends beyond Ruhija, both as trained clinicians move on to work in neighbouring regions and through directly training candidates from areas like Kabale.
Beyond that, our future aims are to build a plan for measuring how health outcomes for neonates have changed since we began this work, and to use what we learn to build other sustainable partnerships in the region.
| Account | Child Health Matters |
| Sort code | 40-52-40 |
| Account no. | 00035550 |
| IBAN | GB31 CAFB 4052 4000 0355 50 |
| Reference | Your name + UG26 |
Giving by bank transfer means no card fees — so more of your donation goes straight to training and equipment on the ground.
Click here to claim Gift Aid on your donationUK taxpayers: adds 25% at no cost to youAdd your email on the Gift Aid form and we'll send confirmation of your donation, plus a report once the project is complete.
Child Health Matters is a small, volunteer-run charity. Every pound given goes toward training and equipment in Ruhija, with no paid staff and minimal overheads. We promise to only spend your money where the biggest difference will be made.
Child Health Matters