This guest blog comes from Chris Deputy, CAMO-Net Communications Manager, who travelled to Kampala to exchange comms and public engagement knowledge with the team there.
Earlier this year, I travelled from Liverpool to Kampala to work with our friends at the Infectious Disease Institute (IDI), Makerere University, or as we know it, CAMO-Net Uganda, on everything CAMO-Net communications. This was funded by a CAMO-Net off-site placement grant, which was originally intended for travel to CAMO-Net South Africa (and I still will go there – their work with Eh!Woza is genuinely inspiring to me and I can’t wait to go back to Cape Town and learn from Tasha and her team). However, with timings and the priorities around building CAMO-Net communication capacity with Uganda’s Clare Kahuma, I went to Uganda instead.
Being a very sensitive and delicate young man, I tend to get sick on almost every trip I take, and this trip was no different. I’ve lost count of the times my infectious diseases colleagues in Liverpool have patched me up upon my return home. It’s almost like I take my job in this AMR world so seriously that I incubate harmful bacteria inside my body just to see if the antibiotics are still working, because I am a consummate and dedicated professional doing my bit to address AMR by putting my own body on the line. You are welcome society.
I’m not sure exactly what meal caused my latest malady. I really love the food in Uganda and I’ve eaten some incredible matoke in the past, especially when it’s partnered with delicious g-nut sauce. However, one day I ate some matoke that tasted like it had been found it in the bin three weeks prior and plated up with the carcass of a naked mole rat that had died from the plague last year and then exhumed from its pit of eternal doom just to be set afloat in a bowl of oily water drawn from the gutters of the Kisenyi slum. But being a polite gentleman and not wanting to cause any offence, I ate it all.
The next day, and every subsequent day of my placement, I spent slowly dying as a waterfall of dismay left my body. On the positive side, I had put on a few extra pounds over the Christmas period and so this was an excellent way to lose some of my unwanted winter fat. I’d like to publicly thank Dr Hope Mackline who came to my rescue with some medication that worked very quickly.
My malaise aside, Uganda was a great experience. It was my second time in the country (and yes, I got sick the first time too) and my favourite thing about it (apart from the matoke) is the people. Our colleagues at IDI are incredibly generous and friendly people, and are always ready to greet you with a smile and a warm embrace. We are very lucky that they also happen to be extraordinary scientists, researchers, clinicians, and administrators, so I learned a lot about how they operate at a world-class level in an environment with limited resources. I’m really proud to call the people at IDI my colleagues.
First on the agenda was a meeting with Dr Andrew Kambugu, CAMO-Net Uganda’s leader, to set our priorities. It was also my first experience of the aforementioned generosity of the Ugandan people. Andrew is an incredibly busy man, and I turned up almost 30 minutes late for our meeting – most people would have cancelled the meeting there and then, but luckily for me Andrew waited. I would have been on time of course if it hadn’t been for my extended tour of the Kampala traffic – my taxi driver took us to the wrong place initially, so we sat together in gridlocked traffic for an hour talking about why Museveni is the only realistic option to lead the country. I didn’t argue with him. However, I ended up getting out of the taxi about a 15 minute walk away from the Makerere University campus and power walked through the intense humidity. After almost being killed three times by boda bodas driving the wrong way down a path only intended for pedestrians, I made it to our meeting, sweaty and discombobulated (but fortunately, alive).
Andrew and I spoke with Clare, Mackline, and Ellon Twinomuhwezi (our wonderful CAMO-Net Capacity Strengthening lead) about local priorities, and not just what we communicate, but why it matters in context. Discussions around the capacity strengthening website and wider communications approach quickly became practical sessions, with a shared focus on how tools and platforms can better reflect the scale and impact of work happening at CAMO-Net.
These are the things we worked on every day during my visit. Clare is doing some great work and together we’re improving our web and social media presence, highlighting the excellent work that all of our CAMO-Net colleagues from around the world are doing. Things, of course, were already very good (because I did them), but they will soon be getting even better (because Clare is helping). We were able to map out practical next steps, from strengthening social media consistency and planning to identifying more proactive storytelling opportunities that better reflect the depth and reach of activity across the network. Having that focused time together made a real difference, creating a clearer, shared direction that we can now build on.
A key part of the visit also involved working closely with communications colleagues at Makerere University. It’s very important to put on your underwear before you put on your trousers. In other words, the only way to get your external comms right is to get your internal comms working first. So, with this in mind, we brought together IDI comms and Makerere comms. One thing I’ve learned over my storied career is that if you offer people food, people will come. We were lucky to have attracted Makerere’s Deputy Chief of Public Relations to our meeting (a much more important Deputy than me) over brunch. We discussed how to raise awareness of what IDI does in Uganda, especially with CAMO-Net, and how we can use the strong comms network of Makerere University to amplify our own work. These sessions were really useful in aligning approaches, understanding existing systems, and identifying where CAMO-Net activity could be more effectively embedded within institutional channels.
We also began developing a documentary-style video focused on one of CAMO-Net Uganda’s research projects. This included planning, scripting, and filming in the PK Lab, as well as capturing wider content across IDI and Makerere University. Working with the team on this brought together research, storytelling, and patient engagement in a way that felt both collaborative and purposeful. The video is currently in edit and should be ready soon!
Some of the most impactful moments for me personally though came from the engagement activities I attended. Meeting patients at the Mulago National Referral Hospital and hearing about their experiences will stay with me for a long time. Whilst there, I watched the IDI Drama team perform some comedy, music, dance, and drama for the patients to teach them about appropriate antibiotic use. It was a great experience, and seeing how engaged the patients were as they watched and learned was amazing. IDI’s work here is something we could all learn from – engaging people with context specific techniques. And context is incredibly important. If I went to my local hospital and danced to a drum as people waited to see a doctor, I’d probably end up as an inpatient on the mental health ward. But this style worked so well in this context. I think we could all learn from this, and each hub should get to work on developing their own contextual public engagement activities.
What stood out most during my time in Kampala was how well-connected and influential the Uganda team is nationally. There is a clear sense among the team that the work being led here is not only contributing to global conversations around antimicrobial resistance, but actively shaping approaches within the country. That makes collaboration across CAMO-Net both meaningful and necessary.
This placement reinforced the importance of investing in relationships, understanding context, and learning how to say no to food that you know is going to make you sick. This experience will continue to shape how I approach communications across the network moving forward.
