The Silent majority camp is rejoicing the milestone achieved this week in their fight to curb Tuberculosis (TB) in the country, their leader the outspoken Bebe Cool took it to social media to share the good news.
“I am happy to inform you that I officially received a grant of close to $400,000 USD from Stop TB Partnership’s TB REACH initiative at a ceremony that took place in Ho Chi Mihn City, Vietnam. The TB REACH initiative is funded by the Government of Canada and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,” said Bebe Cool.
“The grant, through my recently founded non-profit organisation ‘The Amber Heart Foundation’, is in support of activities aimed at finding missing TB patients within the districts of Kampala, Jinja and Mbarara,” He added.
Bebe Cool further said that this grant is a result of a vigorous application exercise that saw The Amber Heart Foundation triumph over 600 applications from all over the world and that this is a great boost to his charity efforts.
“While for years I have been undertaking different charity works at my personal expense, it feels great when someone else recognises such efforts and decides to chip in. This is a great boost to our health care system,” Bebe Cool added.
“Statistics prove that 80,000 Ugandans die of Tuberculosis annually yet this disease is treatable in all government facilities moreover for free. It is also absurd that many of my fellow Ugandans do not know the symptoms of TB and never think to get screened/tested until it is too late and they have passed it on to their loved ones. The Amber Heart Foundation using this grant comes in to fill the gap of awareness and mobilisation of people for testing and treatment.
Bebe Cool was last year appointed Uganda’s Tuberculosis Ambassador and has been engaging in many charitable activities under Amber Heart Foundation, the latest being last year when he donated over Shs60 million from proceeds of his concert towards facilitating treatment of children with heart defects.