Our work

Sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) is a global predicament to which over a third of women worldwide are exposed. Its negative consequences for reproductive, maternal, adolescent, and mental health are well-documented. The 2016 Uganda Demographic and Health Survey revealed that up to 22% of women aged 15 to 49 in the country had experienced some form of sexual violence. The report also revealed that annually, 13% of women aged 15 to 49 report experiencing sexual violence. This translates to more than 1 million women exposed to sexual violence every year in Uganda.

Despite some successes on SGBV service access, a lot more work remains to be done to ensure the victims of SGBV can be supported to access social support services as well as other SRHR services.

With funding from UNFPA and Netherlands government, Marie Stopes UG (MSUG) is implementing the ANSWER project to advance sexual Reproductive Health and Rights in facilitate this training in 12 districts of West Nile (Pakwach, Nebbi, Zombo, Arua, Madi-Okollo, Maracha, Terego, Obongi, Adjumani, Yumbe, Koboko, Moyo) and three districts of Acholi sub region (Amuru, Lamwo and Agago).

The Goal is to contribute to the achievement of universal access to SRHR of women, girls, boys, men, including vulnerable populations in Uganda. One of the activities under this project is to conduct a training of VHTs & Health Assistants on SGBV, Disability, and refugee services.

The training is aimed at building the capacity VHTs and Health assistants to effectively detect all issues and forms of SGBV amongst adolescents, women, PWDs and refugees and be able to either refer or provide appropriate services to minimize the SGBV effects on SRHR uptake

The project started on 22nd September 2021 and is expected to run for a period of one month

Samasha was contracted by RTI Act | East to provide technical support to the MoH NTDCP secretariat to develop an NTD advocacy strategy to address policy and financing gaps identified in the Sustainability Plan, highlight the key areas and issues within the NTD Uganda program that should be given focus and also propose the advocacy tactics and approaches that facilitate to drive the overall strategy goal.

The Project Objectives are:
a) Build capacity of the NTD Secretariat members in basic advocacy skills within context of NTD programming
b) Identify, select and endorse members of the newly constituted Advocacy subcommittee within NTDCP
c) Develop NTD advocacy strategy to support the implementation of the Sustainability Plan of NTD Program for Uganda.

The project started in June 2021 and is expected to end in August 2021

Health Policy Plus (HP+) is supporting Samasha in the implementation of the Joint Accountability project in Ouagadougou Partnership Countries.

The aim of the project is to strengthen capacity of Civil Society leaders, Government and other Family Planning stakeholders including Youth Ambassadors in fostering Joint Accountability for Family Planning, especially as countries develop FP2030 commitments.

Project will run from March to December 2021 in Benin, Niger and Senegal.

Health Policy Plus (HP+) is supporting Samasha in the implementation of the Joint Accountability project in Ouagadougou Partnership Countries.

The aim of the project is to strengthen capacity of Civil Society leaders, Government and other Family Planning stakeholders including Youth Ambassadors in fostering Joint Accountability for Family Planning, especially as countries develop FP2030 commitments.

Project will run from March to December 2021 in Benin, Niger and Senegal.

Samasha was contracted by the Ministry of Health through the Uganda Reproductive Maternal Child Health Services Improvement Project to provide consultancy services for clinical skills update and mentorship for Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn,Child and Adolescent Health (RMNCAH) in the Busoga/Bukedi region.

The objective of the assignment is to coordinate and supervise the Health Professional Associations (HPAs) and Regional Referral Hospitals (RRHs) in the implementation and provision of clinical mentorship program in the regions (Busoga and Bukedi) and facilitate the programme to achieve its goal and objective.

It’s a 12months project.
The Specific objectives are

1.  In collaboration and working with Health Professional Associations and respective Regional Referral Hospitals, prepare and submit a detailed and costed proposal for providing the clinical mentorship programme for all the health workers in Health Centres IIIs and IVs and hospitals of the specified region (s) (and the districts therein) of the country
2. Conduct a Training/Mentorship Needs Assessment (TNA) for the mentorship of the health workers in all the districts of the specified region.
3.  Ensure HPAs and RRHS conduct the training/mentorship and follow up of the health workers in collaboration with MoH.
4.  Establish and maintain a training/mentorship database for trained staff in the region by district. Use of the existing MoH HRIS is advised but take care of tracking improvement in competence levels.
5. Coordinate and supervise the Health Professional Associations and the respective Regional Referral Hospitals in the provision of the mentorship of the health workers in the specified regions
6. Facilitate Health Professional Associations and Regional Referral Hospitals to provide the mentorship programme (detailed in the submitted proposal) in the region
7. Monitor the implementation of the mentorship programme in the specified regions, tracking coverage, skills and competence improvement, clinical quality of care as well as improved leadership and data driven programming in the health facilities
8. Provide regular (Monthly and Quarterly) updates on progress of the implementation of the mentorship programme to Ministry of Health

At the end of the project, we expect to have improved the knowledge and skills of health workers hence reduction of maternal/neonatal mortality and morbidity

The project is to run for 12 months and is expected to end in January 2022

Family Planning programs have historically had limited financial data for decision-making around program implementation and resource allocation and prioritization. To help improve data availability on government FP expenditures, the Track20 Project works directly with governments in participating FP2020 countries to collect, analyze and actively use data to produce annual estimates on a range of key FP indicators. The project also aims to obtain primary cost data to improve costing of FP strategies and plans. Samasha was therefore contracted by Avenir Health/Track20 in collaboration with Ministry of Health, to the FP Unit cost study in Uganda.

The study is aimed at;

• The cost of delivering FP services in a variety of settings and at various implementation levels (i.e. at site level and above site).
• The specific cost components (labour, drugs and medical supplies, equipment, etc.) that drive or carry the largest share of the total cost of service delivery.

The USAID/Family Planning Activity (FPA) is a five-year project under Pathfinder International running from 2020-2025. The USAID/FPA will play a catalytic role in increasing access to modern contraception and reducing the unmet need for voluntary family planning services in Uganda.

The project will apply evidence-based approaches that address gender disparities and biases preventing adolescents and youth from accessing contraception. Samasha is the lead partner for commodity security components of the project.

In close collaboration with Uganda’s Ministry of Health, the USAID/Uganda Family Planning Activity (FPA) will support the Government of Uganda to accelerate progress toward its commitments and objectives under FP2020 and the country’s Vision 2040 strategy. FPA approaches include:

FPA interventions will be conducted across 11 districts of Uganda where communities have a significant unmet need for voluntary family planning services and will support regionally based implementing partners to offer quality services at scale. FPA will scale up high-impact practices and test new innovations that address the unique reproductive health needs of individual Ugandans.

The Consortium Partnership includes Pathfinder International, Samasha Medical Foundation, Uganda Protestant Medical Bureau (UPMB) and Ugandan Young and Adolescent Health Forum (UYAHF).

The Ministry of Health (Reproductive and Infant Health Division) in collaboration with Uganda Family Planning Consortium (UFPC) contracted Samasha to facilitate the process of developing district FP CIPs for Mpigi, Butambala, Apac, Dokolo, Nebbi and Maracha Districts.

The District FP-CIPs will address six thematic areas: Demand creation, Service delivery and access, Contraceptive security, Financing, Policy and enabling environment, and Stewardship, management and accountability.

The Objectives of the assignment are:

This assigment started in January 2020 and is expected to be completed by April 2020.

In Uganda, the Family Planning market is greatly subsidized for both poor and well to do and there are indications that the market for Family Planning commodities in Uganda is not sustainable due to monopoly of the few market shareholders, who control more than 50 percent of the market for selected products. This gives them a controlling stake to influence the quantity and price, which undermines market sustainability.

The goal of this Project is to contribute to the draft Uganda Family Planning Total Market Approach strategy of increasing private sector market share from 39% to 50%; particularly, to measure the contribution of the commercial sector (private for profit) to the Family planning market

The objectives of the project are;

The project started in December 2019 and its expected to run for a period of Two years.

Samasha is working alongside PAI to provide technical assistance to advocates in four African countries (Malawi, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia ) to track Family Planning budget and domestic allocation.

Phase 2 of this project includes two main areas of work;

This project started in august 2019, and expected to last 3 years.

In May 2019, Samasha Medical Foundation (Samasha) partnered with the Ouagadougou Partnership to implement a 1 year project titled FP2020 Accountability Project in Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire and Togo.

The overall goal of the project is to accelerate the fulfillment of the targeted number of fundamental commitments to Family Planning 2020. The aim is to support countries in meeting their country-specific commitments using the Motion Tracker© which leverages both the expertise and resources of national partners as well as those of the international community.

Specific objectives of the project are;

a) Select a country level partner in project countries as the local convener
b) Conduct high intensity, tailored training of one technical person and the convener organization manager from the three local convening organizations in Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire and Togo.
c) Facilitate and oversee interpretation, data collection and analysis of country-specific commitments.
d) Support 3 stakeholder meetings in each of the project countries (Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire and Togo)
e) Provide quarterly updates of the Regional Motion Tracker (Online visual platform)
f) Document experience in the Motion Tracker replication, commitments tracking and lessons learned

The project started in May 2019 and is expected to end in February 2020.

In November 2018, Samasha Medical Foundation (Samasha) partnered with PAI to implement a 3year project titled FP2020 Accountability Project in Ethiopia, Indonesia, Kenya and Tanzania. The aim of the project is to support country advocates in implementing a multi-stakeholder driven accountability and monitoring tool that strengthens and enhances the capacity of civil society to track progress in achieving government FP2020 commitments.

Samasha and PAI identified country conveners in each of the project countries namely Consortium of Reproductive Health Associations (CORHA) in Ethiopia, YAYASAN CIPTA in Indonesia, AMREF Kenya in Kenya and HDT in Tanzania.

The objectives of the FP2020 Accountability Project are;
• To increase mutual accountability and partnership among civil society and government in at least four countries to realize FP2020 commitments.
• To increase sustainability of established accountability coalitions, processes and work led by civil society in at least four countries beyond 2021

The project started in November 2019 and runs until June 2021.