Culture Change in an African Convent
It was only yesterday, during a workshop of 50 African nuns aged from 100 to 23 years old, that I realized that the 'Pilot Project for Palliative Care for Elderly African Sisters' is, at least in part, a cultural change project.
This workshop heard the results of 40 interviews with elderly nuns, caregivers, and leadership of the Little Sisters of Saint Francis in Uganda, on what was needed to give the elderly nuns in the community the comfort, care and dignity that they deserve in their final years.
The interviews were conducted with funding by the project which is led by African Palliative Care Association.
The sisters including the Mother General, the elderly nuns and the novices sat together in small groups to discuss the findings of the interviews and actions which should be taken next. This was the first time the Little Sisters of St Francis had put serious time and energy into really thinking about the needs of the elderly sisters and it was a joy to see the level of enthusiasm in the room. They identified needs, some of which the project was very aware, of which we hadn’t thought of. More importantly they identified lots of solutions - many of which could be done within the community itself without any extra funding, and it was clear to me that in the six months since I had last visited the convent in Nkokonjeru significant change has started.
In ten days we have a follow up meeting to do a deep dive into the research findings and start work on developing a comprehensive training programme – this will include safe patient handling and mobility, pain relief, social activation, dementia support and will be developed by APCA to the highest international standard. This training will be available free of charge for use by religious orders across Africa to support the 8 - 10,000 elderly religious sisters in Africa.
To learn more about this project and how you can support it see here.
Nkokonjeru, Uganda 20th September 2026