Building an Inclusive HIV Response: INUWA International Meets ADPHA Uganda
A meeting in Kampala opens an important conversation on disability inclusion, HIV and TB services, youth participation, community leadership and future collaboration.
Kampala, Uganda | 4 September 2026
As the INUWA Uganda Community & Youth Empowerment Programme continues, the programme is moving beyond internal planning and into an important phase of listening, learning and building relationships with organisations already working within Uganda’s communities.
On 4 September 2026, members of the INUWA International Uganda team held an introductory meeting with representatives of the Association of Persons with Disabilities Living with HIV/AIDS (ADPHA Uganda).
The meeting created a valuable space for both organizations to share experiences, better understand each other’s work and explore areas where their missions intersect particularly around HIV and TB, disability inclusion, young people, women, community participation and sustainable livelihoods.
But the conversation also raised a much deeper question:
Who can still be left behind when health and development programmes are designed with good intentions?
For INUWA International, that question matters.
Disability Inclusion Must Be Part of the HIV
Conversation
HIV does not affect people in isolation from the other realities of their lives.
A person may be living with HIV while also experiencing disability, poverty, unemployment, gender inequality, discrimination, limited mobility, lack of information or difficulty accessing appropriate health services.
For young persons with disabilities, these barriers can become even more complex.
During the meeting, particular attention was given to the challenges persons with disabilities may face in accessing HIV and TB prevention information, testing, treatment, care and support services.
Accessibility is not only about whether a health facility physically exists.
It can also mean asking whether information is understandable and available in accessible formats; whether someone can physically reach services; whether health workers understand disability; whether confidentiality and dignity are protected; whether young people feel safe seeking care; and whether persons with disabilities are actually included when programmes and policies affecting them are being designed.
This is an important area of learning for INUWA.
If our work is truly about human rights and community empowerment, inclusion cannot be an additional activity introduced at the end of a programme.
It must be part of programme design from the beginning.
Listening Before Expanding
The Uganda programme is also helping INUWA International understand something fundamental about sustainable community development:
We should not enter communities assuming that we already know what they need.
There are organisations, advocates, health professionals, community leaders, young people and people with lived experience who have been working on these issues for years.
Our responsibility is therefore not simply to introduce new projects.
It is also to listen, learn, identify existing strengths, understand gaps and determine where INUWA can contribute without unnecessarily duplicating work that already exists.
The meeting with ADPHA Uganda represents this approach.
The discussion allowed both organisations to exchange perspectives and identify areas of shared interest, including:
disability-inclusive HIV and TB programming;
improving access to prevention, testing, treatment and support;
meaningful participation of young persons with disabilities;
community engagement and community-led responses;
women’s and youth empowerment;
health education and awareness;
reducing stigma and discrimination;
sustainable livelihoods and economic empowerment; and
organisational learning and knowledge exchange.
An Important Update Following the Meeting
Following the meeting, ADPHA Uganda publicly reflected on the engagement, describing the discussion as a fruitful opportunity for ADPHA Uganda and INUWA International to share experiences and examine how the organisations could work together to address barriers faced by persons with disabilities
particularly young persons with disabilities — in accessing HIV and TB prevention, testing, treatment and support services.
ADPHA Uganda also highlighted the importance of building inclusive, community-led HIV and TB responses in Uganda and expressed interest in continuing the engagement and exploring meaningful partnership opportunities.
For INUWA International, this response is encouraging.
It shows that the conversation was not simply a ceremonial meeting or exchange of introductions. There is a potential area of substantive work that deserves further exploration.
At the same time, INUWA is approaching this responsibly.
No formal partnership is being announced at this stage.
The next step is to continue learning about each organization’s work, capacities, priorities and community reach and to determine whether there are practical areas where collaboration could produce measurable value for communities.
Any future partnership should have clear objectives, responsibilities, safeguarding standards, accountability mechanisms and outcomes.
From Beneficiaries to Participants and Leaders
One of the principles INUWA International wants to carry forward from this engagement is that persons with disabilities should not be viewed only as recipients of assistance.
They must also be recognised as leaders, decision-makers, advocates, professionals and experts in their own lived realities.
The same principle applies across INUWA’s work.
Young people should participate in shaping youth programmes.
Women should participate in designing initiatives affecting women.
People living with HIV should have a meaningful voice in HIV programming.
Persons with disabilities should be involved in decisions about disability inclusion.
And communities should not simply receive programmes created elsewhere; they should participate in identifying problems, shaping solutions, implementing activities and evaluating whether those solutions actually work. That is how community ownership begins.
Connecting Health with Economic Empowerment
Another important area discussed was sustainable livelihoods.
Health outcomes cannot always be separated from economic realities.
For someone struggling to meet basic needs, accessing healthcare consistently may be affected by transportation costs, unemployment, food insecurity, dependency on others or lack of economic opportunities.
This is why INUWA International’s broader model connects health and human rights with education, skills, entrepreneurship, livelihoods, youth and women’s empowerment and community development.
A sustainable HIV response therefore requires more than distributing information.
It requires looking at the whole person and asking:
What circumstances affect this person's ability to remain healthy, independent, informed and economically secure?
What This Means for the INUWA Uganda Programme
The meeting with ADPHA Uganda is part of the wider learning process taking place during the INUWA Uganda Community & Youth Empowerment Programme.
The programme is allowing INUWA to engage directly with communities and organisations and understand where future programmes can have the strongest impact.
Lessons from these engagements will help shape INUWA’s longer-term work in Uganda, particularly around:
Health and HIV — strengthening awareness, prevention, treatment literacy, stigma reduction and community engagement.
Youth empowerment — creating opportunities for young people to build leadership, skills, confidence and economic independence.
Women’s empowerment — strengthening participation, livelihoods, health knowledge and community leadership.
Disability inclusion — ensuring future INUWA programmes consider accessibility and meaningful participation from programme design through implementation and monitoring.
Livelihoods and entrepreneurship — connecting social and health interventions with pathways toward sustainable economic independence.
Partnerships — building relationships with organisations that already possess community knowledge, credibility and specialised expertise.
Building Carefully, Not Quickly
For INUWA International, expansion is not simply about being present in more communities or launching more projects.
It is about building structures that can last.
That requires listening before acting, assessing needs before designing interventions and creating partnerships based on complementary strengths rather than visibility alone.
The meeting with ADPHA Uganda represents one step in that process.
There is still more to learn.
There are still communities to listen to, programmes to assess, relationships to build and systems to strengthen.
But every meaningful conversation provides another piece of the picture.
And with each engagement, INUWA International is gaining a clearer understanding of what responsible, inclusive and sustainable community development in Uganda should look like.
Looking Ahead
INUWA International appreciates the representatives of ADPHA Uganda for engaging openly with our team and sharing their experience and perspectives.
We look forward to continuing the dialogue and exploring whether there are practical opportunities for future collaboration that can strengthen disability-inclusive, community-led responses to HIV and TB while advancing the dignity, participation and economic empowerment of persons with disabilities.
Our work in Uganda is still developing.
And that is precisely why these conversations matter.
We are not simply asking:
“What programme can INUWA bring?”
We are asking:
“What already exists? Who is being left behind? What can we learn? Where are the real gaps? And what can we build together that will remain valuable long after a programme ends?”
That is the foundation on which sustainable impact must be built.
INUWA InternationalEmpower. Elevate. Transform.
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