About us
Background
Knowledge for Change (K4C) was registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales in January 2012 (no. 1146911). Our charitable objectives are to improve the standard of healthcare and education provision for the poorest members of society in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). For over 10 years, we have been working across multiple hospitals and health centres in Uganda to sustainably improve the health system and achieve better standards of care for patients. The work we do includes the placement of professional volunteers, infrastructural developments, the provision and repair of medical equipment, staff training and capacity building, working with local educational institutions to develop new and improved undergraduate and postgraduate curricula, organising staff exchange programmes and running ethical and educational elective placements for students.
Core Values
K4C’s core values centre around making ethical, sustainable and mutually beneficial improvements to health and education systems. We believe that the best way to do this is through the transfer of knowledge between professionals and students working in the health and education systems in order to improve their skills and capacity. Sticking to these values ensures that we achieve the best long-term outcomes for all the High-, Middle- and Low-Income Countries that we work with.
What We Do
International Development Projects
K4C has run numerous international development projects over the years including sustainable volunteering, biomedical engineering, infection prevention and control, antimicrobial stewardship, cervical screening, developing a high dependency unit, promoting respectful maternity care, building accessible toilets within schools and supporting the Uganda Blood Transfusion Service amongst others. Our main donors have included Health Education England, the UK Department for International Development, the Tropical Health Education Trust, the Burdett Trust for Nursing and Wellbeing of Women Foundation. Many projects are run in partnership with the University of Salford, and all are designed and evaluated in line with our core values of sustainability, ethics and mutual benefit.
Professional Volunteering
K4C ’s primary activity has included the placement of over 300 professional volunteers from High-Income Countries in Uganda over the last 10 years, initially supported by the UK Department for International Development through the Tropical Health Education Trust. These volunteers have included doctors, midwives, nurses, biomedical engineers, allied health professionals, social workers and social scientists; all of whom have worked alongside local staff to exchange valuable knowledge, skills and experience to the mutual benefit of both countries. We have also supported over 50 Ugandan health workers to travel to the UK to complete training courses and degree programmes to enhance their learning, funded by the British Commonwealth Fellowship Scheme.
Student Placements
More recently, K4C has begun to focus on the improving the education of students through undergraduate and postgraduate student exchange programmes. Our student placement project (initially supported by Health Education England) has now placed over 300 students in Uganda from courses including medicine, nursing, midwifery, the allied health professions, social work, prosthetics and orthotics and business. All student placements are linked to K4C’s ongoing development projects and are supervised by our highly competent team of professional volunteers and local staff. Our current student placement locations include large hospitals, rural health centres and community-based organisations in Kampala and Fort Portal (Uganda). We are planning to expand these great opportunities to other counties throughout 2020/21!
Global Health Research
K4C endeavours to remain at the forefront of Global Health Research and has been closely involved with several research projects and publications, in partnership with the University of Salford. All K4C projects are designed to be dynamic and are closely monitored and evaluated in order to maximise their impact and cost efficiency. Research findings have been shared through policy reports, books and journal articles as well as regular presentations at conferences, workshops and with British and Ugandan government officials.
