RAY OF HOPE NURSING HOME

    

Awards Nominee Category: African ChangeMakers Health & Wellness Award

Nominee Full Name: IRENE APIO WENGI

Nominee Country: Uganda

Company Initiative Career Business: RAY OF HOPE NURSING HOME

Nominee Title Role: Founder & CEO

Nominee Product/Service: MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES

Describe how your Company/Initiative/ Career /Business is turning Africa problems into solutions in your community e.g. technology partnerships reach coverage:

Ray of hope nursing home is a medical facility and residential home that looks after the elderly who are homeless or sick or both; we also provide health and nursing care for those with debilitating mental illnesses of all ages and rehabilitation services for all ages of those with alcohol and other substance use disorders. Part of our package is good nutrition which we give every client who gets admitted under our care, continuous social and material support and medication and nursing care for both physical and mental illnesses. Because nursing homes are common only in the developed world, most of Africa’s elderly have been abandoned and there are many neglected mentally ill roaming the streets; Alcohol and drug addicts are rapidly increasing in number because the few prevailing rehabilitation centres are overwhelmed. So Ray of hope comes in as a great addition to help with easing the congestion at the current available government facilities which are indeed very few. (thirteen regional referral hospitals supposed to serve a population of over forty five million Ugandans). Being not only a medical facility but also a residential and care home, it means it is different from and better than these hospitals and also provides perfect solutions for both these social and health burdens.

 

How does the Company Initiative/Career/Business improve people’s life, impact, affordability and reliability?

Ray of hope nursing home is improving lives of its clients because before they come to Ray of hope, they are homeless and helpless living on the streets, eating from rubbish hips or begging for food/ money from well wishers or passers by, with no access to good water and sanitation, shelter and a warm bed to sleep in at night and fully exposed to dangerous situations of substance misuse by wayward youth and high criminal activity of street gangs. At Ray of hope we change their lives for the better because we welcome them in and provide them with food, medicines, safe water, shelter and with all the support that they need be it social support, material support, emotional support, etc.. We are completely affordable because we are a private not for profit company and we are reliable because we work twenty four hours a day.

 

How can this service product or solution be expanded to new markets or areas in Africa?

Ray of hope nursing home currently consists of one central branch in Kampala city in Uganda but we can spread it out by building other branches or centres in every district in Uganda so that all people all over Uganda have easier access to a nursing home. Even those in remote areas with no transport to reach the centre can be reached. Not only can we build branches in our country but also in all other African countries. This is actually one of our goals for the next ten-twenty years. The ultimate aim is to wipe Africa’s streets of all the homeless elderly, mentally ill of all ages and to reduce the number of drug and alcohol addicts.

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Voting Timeline: July 15 to July 30, 2021.