Life with Jiggers: Mukose Elipa’s family

Mukose Elipa a father of four with a wife who is soon to give birth to their fifth child. They live in Mayuge district in Uganda. Here we see him with his 12-year-old daughter and, 15-year-old son. They too were living in poverty and one of the results is a sand flea (jiggers) infestation of the whole family, with the children affected most. During our first outreach #GPSUBusogaCampaign in 2019, His wife Lucy Naita had four children but, as of our recent outreach in 2021, she was eight months pregnant with their fifth and at the time this was published, she had already given birth but without even a door, for their house. Add on to that a shared sleeping area with no beddings and the picture gets worse indeed. The whole family unfortunately was affected by a jigger infestation in their home, and the children had the most serious cases because they had no shoes and they sleep on the ground. During their interview, he said he was very appreciative that we came to help as they truly are in need. It is moments like this that motivate us to work, reminders that we are providing help to those who really need it. They need a house because someone bought the land on which theirs is yet they are land squatters and, that is a long-term solution we have for them For the short term we were able to extract the jiggers from the bodies of the whole family, . We additionally are working to help Mukose generate income through his mat and basket weaving skill. He even considers selling his merchandise nationwide.