Imagine going to a hospital where the lights are out, the cooling system is down and vaccines that would have been used to prevent a curable disease have been spoiled because the refrigeration cannot work.

Imagine a pregnant mother walking in the middle of a windy night to a health center to be welcomed into a dark labor ward and the only means of light to help her deliver her baby is a flash light or a very small candle.

These unimaginable scenarios are very much reality in poverty-stricken Africa.

CHIU’s Reliable Energy for Health Centers project is working to improve energy resources for many of the existing Catholic Health Centers in Uganda by implementing solar electricity systems. The first great success of this project has been the St. Anthony Health Center Mitala Maria, which has been outfitted with solar panels that provide electricity used to light the Maternity Ward and the General Ward.

This has been accomplished thanks to the generosity of our donors here in the US.

Sadly, a lack of sustainable power sources causes the dangerous scenarios described above to be the way of life in many other health centers in rural Uganda.

CHIU dreams of providing reliable energy to many of these health centers that serve the very poor people in Uganda.