who had abandoned me. On the VHT, it was
Kyambadde who understood my problems since my
husband left me with children. She came to my home
and we talked and she went to inform the sub-county
officials to look for him. She is a very kind woman. She
does not hate people and she does not judge
without listening to you.
Even when people distrusted and suspected many members
of the VHT, they were able to identify others whom
they perceived to be good. They appreciated that someone
could listen and talk to them and understand their
problems.
In an interview, the health assistant responsible for
supervising all VHTs in Luwero sub-county stated that
she was aware that local council leaders were VHT
members in many villages, contrary to the Ministry’s
guidelines. However, she seemed to have gone along
with the selection of VHTs, saying:
Community members are stubborn and hard to
manage. When they are called for meetings, they do
not come but show up to complain when you decide
for them. AMREF gave us money for sensitization
meetings but when community meetings did not
happen in the stipulated time, they became impatient.
Concerning the issue that some people in the
community take all the opportunities,—sometimes
it is due to stringent requirements like the ability to
co-fund [to contribute some resources]. In most cases
it is the leaders who are able.
The assistant appeared reluctant to ensure that the community
had their say in the selection of VHTs. She easily
sided with the leaders’ version without listening to the
other community members. Since she supervised the selection
and did not take a keen interest in ensuring that
the guidelines were followed, she became an accomplice
in elite capture. While the relationship between the VHTs
and the community lacked trust and was instead filled
with suspicion and misunderstanding, an AMREF report
was largely silent on this dynamics save for the recommendation
that authorities and their development
partners should look for appropriate methods to select
motivated volunteers.
VHT adaptations as a result of resentment from the
community
Initially, each VHT member was to be allocated about
25 households, all of which would have participated in
selecting him/her. However, we found that in Luwero
VHTs instead began working in groups, visiting homes
together. Among their first assignments was sensitizing