The Next Media Foundation has announced itself to the world, with a launch of a maternity ward. The foundation’s first major project, the Mama Kariisa Maternity Ward at Rubare Health Centre IV in Ntungamo District, was officially commissioned on 28th March 2026.
The foundation was established with a focused mission: to improve lives in Ugandan communities through deliberate interventions in health, education, and community infrastructure development.
Its formation was driven by our Group CEO Kin Kariisa, who has consistently spoken about the responsibility that comes with influence and platform. The Next Media Foundation is the structure he built to channel that responsibility into organised, long-term community work.
For its first project, the foundation turned its attention to maternal health in Ntungamo, and the choice reflects a clear-eyed understanding of where the need is greatest. Access to obstetric facilities is one of the documented causes of that persistently high rate. In communities like Rubare, mothers have been travelling as far as Mbarara to access adequate maternal care, a journey that is long, expensive, and in emergency situations, potentially fatal.
The Mama Kariisa Maternity Ward was built to close that gap. A modern, fully equipped maternal and neonatal care facility on the grounds of Rubare Health Centre IV. It is fully equipped for maternal and neonatal services, designed to serve mothers in Rubare and the surrounding communities of Ntungamo District.
The foundation’s board, which led its institutional involvement in the project, was present at the commissioning and spoke directly to what the ward means and what the foundation expects it to achieve.
“The Mama Kariisa Maternity Ward speaks to the core of one of our pillars, which is community and infrastructure development” Dr. Dorothy Kyeyune, Chairperson of the Next Media Foundation, said. “It gives us great joy to be part of this intervention because, given the high mortality rates in our country, this intervention will directly benefit the mothers and this community.”
Milton Ocen, Vice Chairperson of the Next Media Foundation, placed the project firmly within Uganda’s national maternal health context: “Next Media Foundation has intervened through the Mama Kariisa ward because one of its core pillars is community development and infrastructure development through improvement of maternal health. Through this intervention, we are able to have improved maternal and delivery services at this ward.”
Flavia Nalubbo, Director of Finance of the Next Media Foundation, brought the conversation closest to the ground, to the real decisions that real families in Ntungamo have been forced to make: “We have heard stories of mothers moving from Ntungamo to Mbarara to get better healthcare. We believe that bringing this maternity ward into the community is going to save a mother who probably would not have made it. But also for those who would have made it, to make it easier and more affordable, so that the burden reduces and families are able to be with their loved ones when they are bringing life.”
The Mama Kariisa Maternity Ward is Project One. It is the foundation’s opening statement, concrete, operational, and directly tied to one of Uganda’s most urgent public health challenges. As the Next Media Foundation looks ahead to future projects across health, education, and community infrastructure, the ward in Rubare stands as the impact that the foundation has set for itself.
