Teaching Health and Wholeness in the University Context

1. Teaching Health and Wholeness in the University Context Doug Fountain Dept of Health Sciences, Uganda Christian University

2. Uganda Christian University • Church of Uganda • Founded in 1997 on grounds of 83 year old theological college • Chartered by Gov’t • Branches around country • Students: • Main: 5000, Branches: 2000 • Will get to 14,000 total • >50% female • >5% international

3. Faculties • Theology • Education and Arts, • Business • Law • Social Science • Science & Technology

4. Serious about Christian identity • Instruments of Identity • Define “authentic” Christianity in doctrine and in practice • Member, CCCU • Integration of worship, fellowship, discipleship • Core courses

5. Core Courses • American model, not British/specialized • Christian subjects: Old Testament, New Testament, Understanding World View, Christian Ethics • Other subjects: Research and Writing Skills, Basic Computing, Mathematics • Newest: Health and Wholeness

6. Why Health and Wholeness • Goals: • Improve health of students on campus • Prepare ‘health leaders’ in work and life • Equip students to influence families in villages • Implication: Must be practical, meaningful, and both self- and other-focused

7. “Opportunities” • Construct a meaningful University-level course for 1,500 students per year! • Assignments and assessing progress • Reading materials that are appropriate, neither too complicated nor too simple • Literature around ‘wholeness’

8. Introduction / Defining Holistic Health Nutrition Hygiene Sanitation, Water, Land Use Sexuality and HIV risk Maternal/Child Health Fitness First Aid/ Early Intervention Infectious Disease Sexually Transmitted Infection Addiction Building Healthy Society Course Content

9. How H&W is taught • Lecture (400+ per lecture!! Yikes) • Tutorial - Discussion • Divided by programme, groups of 40 • Then small groups of 8-10 • Workbooks – personal reflection (it should be) • Readings (mostly AMREF books) • “Whole Truth” – study a scripture passage • Scrap books – application to current subjects • Intention is to be practical and applied

10. How UCU defines wholeness A state of personal physical, emotional/mental, spiritual, and social health in which a person knows their value in the eyes of God, their families and communities, and are empowered to make good health decisions.

11. Two perspectives on wholeness • Social, emotional, spiritual factors influence physical health • Health is more than physical • Emotional hygiene • Spiritual fitness • Social addiction

12. Physical is affected by emotional, social, and spiritual • Role of peer influences (social) • Lack healthy leisure skills/activities (social) • Poor self-esteem, powerlessness (emotional) • Broken relationship with God causes us to act out of selfish intent (spiritual)

13. Example: Hygiene • Physical problem: Keep small germs (bacteria, viruses, parasites) from becoming big health problems • Identify physical strategies • Identify other influences on physical hygiene: • Other people follow cleanliness rules (social) • Feel like taking care of yourself (emotional) • God reminds you to keep His temple clean (spiritual)

14. Example: Hygiene (2) • There are social, emotional, and spiritual “germs” to control as well • Social: Jealousy, lust, rage • Emotional: self doubt, negative view of self • Spiritual: doubt scripture, worship money • These have health consequences, as much as a parasite!

15. Example: Hygiene (3) These men are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. Blackest darkness is reserved for them. For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of sinful human nature, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity--for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him. If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. 22 Of them the proverbs are true: "A dog returns to its vomit," and, "A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud.“ 2Peter 2:17-22

16. Example: Fitness

17. Sexuality and HIV Risk • Sex is God’s gift to a married man/woman • Connect social temptations with self esteem • Provide fact sheet on Green’s ABC data: we want our students to be apologists

18. Feedback • Formal: 625 students in Sept 05 • Highest interest: hygiene, nutrition, Sex/HIV, first aid • 94% of students found the tutorials to be very helpful • Informal: What students do with this information • Nebbi – Student phoned family each week, they passed on to others. • Jinja – 15 students spending 10 weeks in an underserved fishing village, helping a local organization carry out health promotion

19. “Building a healthy society” • Student concerned about “social diseases” • Tribalism, nepotism, corruption • Lead to inefficiency, misappropriation of resources, and under service • “If you go to the hospital and find a nurse from a different tribe, you may as well go home” • Approach: Debate on topics by outsiders… other ideas?