Haven Nahabwe: A Lifelong Commitment to Public Health in Rural Uganda

UCBPH: Tell us a little about the current work you're doing. Who are the people you're working with and what inspired you to pursue it?

My name is Haven Nahabwe, a First Year Online Master of Public Health (MPH) student at UC Berkeley and a Global Health Fellow. I come from Uganda, and I work in a place called Bwindi, in rural southwestern Uganda, on the edge of Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, where mist clings to the treetops and mountain gorillas roam.

Over the last 15 years, I have served as a public health surveillance manager for Bwindi Community Hospital (BCH), an emerging center of excellence in medical care and public health research in the heart of southwestern Uganda. A journey that began with an internship in 2010 has become my life’s calling.

How do you connect to the populations you work with?

My public health journey began during a community health internship while I was pursuing my undergraduate degree in community health. I chose to do my final year internships in my home district as a way of connecting and understanding the public health challenges of my community and what needed to be done to make positive change. I was not prepared for the profound impact this placement would have on me.

One day, I climbed up a mountain to reach a remote community that lacked clean water, food, and adequate shelter. This experience changed my life forever. I met a 12-year-old girl raising her three younger siblings, all abandoned by their father after the mother’s death. All the children were severely malnourished. Together with my supervisor and another student intern, we supported the family throughout our three-month internship program. We supported nutritional rehabilitation, ran a campaign to repair the leaking roof of their house, and helped provide food for a year. This single event helped me to see firsthand how community-driven public health interventions transform lives.

From that moment, I knew I belonged in the Bwindi and I hoped for an employment opportunity once I completed my undergraduate studies. And, after graduation, I was given a volunteering opportunity that turned into a job. I have worked at BCH for 15 years, leading community-based maternal and child health programs that improved neonatal outcomes, along with nutrition campaigns, and implementing disease surveillance initiatives. I became part of the community, working not as an outsider, but as someone embedded in their daily struggles and successes.

I grew up in a rural, hard-to-reach area with limited access to healthcare, especially in the 1990s and early 2000s, during which I witnessed the deaths of family and friends from preventable illness. When I was 16, I survived cerebral malaria which has left me with long-term effects. My family struggled to afford medical care for optimal disease prevention. But I learned early on from my mother that health is made at home. That’s public health. When I later studied public health formally, it confirmed what I had lived through—and my mother’s belief. I needed to help people facing the same challenges I experienced.

What health programs have you been working on? What challenges have you faced?

I am particularly proud of a maternal and child health project funded by Grand Challenges Canada that I participated in from conception to completion. The goal of the project was to reduce under-five mortality. When we did a baseline survey, we noted that most of the deaths were from preventable complications during delivery that were happening in children who were born outside the health facility. At the same time, only 67% of the women were delivering in the health facility. This project used simple interventions to increase hospital deliveries from 67% to 95%. This is higher than the current national average and led to a significant reduction in under-five mortality.

Because of my interest in infectious diseases, I have trained over 500 community health workers and led awareness campaigns on Ebola, Marburg, Anthrax, and COVID-19, especially focusing on prevention and contact-tracing during active outbreaks.

I have been deeply involved in disease surveillance. Since 2021, I have managed two National Institute of Health (NIH)–funded grants through UC Davis. The most recent innovation focuses on creating an alert system using basic flip phones and algorithm-based reporting to detect early signs of zoonotic disease spillover. I believe creating systems that facilitate early detection can lead to prevention of the next epidemic; this is all driven by one of the most fascinating discoveries around Bwindi where we see serological evidence of exposure to diseases like Ebola and Marburg even though we haven’t experienced outbreaks here. The NIH grants help us to attempt to answer this big question which is now the core area of my current research work.

Over the last 15 years, BCH has built a robust structure of over 500 community health workers and we continue to work directly with communities, including the indigenous Batwa people. We hinge on community engagement plans to implement health interventions and this approach has been pivotal in our success.

The most common challenges we face include the unpaved Bwindi roads that are often blocked during the rainy season as roads get washed off and are not repaired in time. In addition, there is a serious shortage of public health professionals with just three or four for a population of over 300,000, with only one epidemiologist. At the same time, public health is underfunded in Uganda, and we rely heavily on grants. Most funds are allocated to the curative interventions. We have also been severely affected by the recent freeze on U.S. Federal Reserve grants which I learnt this morning would affect a major project, and we are uncertain about the future of the other grants.

How do you measure success?

For me, success is not about titles or money, it’s “fullness of the heart,” and lifting up others. It’s about seeing change. The interventions and programs that I help to create help children grow healthier, mothers survive childbirth, and communities thrive. These are attributes I have learned from being a part of the Bwindi community, a place I now call home. I have chosen to stay in Bwindi over other opportunities in the city, for example, I had to turn down a university position in the city because I believe in staying where there is the biggest need and help is needed most.

Why are you pursuing an MPH from UC Berkeley?

Although I already have an MPH from a local university, the program lacked the depth in epidemiology and statistics that I need to advance my work. I realized this when I started participating in research activities. Based on what I have been able to study so far, the UC Berkeley Online MPH is giving me the tools to analyze, interpret, and apply research findings to real-world problems.

I must say that working on a couple of projects, being a fulltime father, a teacher, and a student (at the same time) is tougher than I expected, but I know it’s the education I need to make broader, data-driven impacts in my community and beyond.

UC Berkeley is one of the best schools in the world and a global leader in public health. I always wanted to be part of this community, and I am glad to learn from the best faculty. I will be able to bring the lessons home to Uganda.