Helene Gayle: Visits to Kibera and Kisumu
August 18, 2009
There were a couple visits that really left a strong impression on me and others in the delegation. One was to a CARE program once visited by President Obama when he was a senator. The program is called Tego Od Dayo or Strengthening the House of Nanny. It supports more than 1,000 women to help care for some 3,191 AIDS orphans and children orphaned by other circumstances. One woman, Anastasia Akinyi Otieno, said her son was killed during post-election violence in Nairobi last year and she took in his twin daughters as a result. The project helps support this grandmother's small cereal and vegetable business through access to credit. Using modest earnings from her hard work, she provides for her family. Anastasia named her two dogs Obama and Michelle, evidence of how much she appreciates the support.
Further down the road at another village, we spoke to members of an HIV and AIDS support group. One woman, Consolata Anyango, said she can't stand silently. This district has a 24 percent HIV prevalence rate. Consolata and her group are living proof that life can continue after a HIV positive test. After finding out she was HIV positive in 2004, she joined some 50 others in this community, working to stop the stigma, sensitize the community and advise others about prevention. At the neighboring clinic, Bar Olengo Dispensary, Moses Busolo, a nurse who supports and distributes antiretroviral medications to Consolata's group, reaffirmed the message. He explained, "There's no difference between an HIV-positive person and someone who hasn't been tested." Moses delivers, on average, 10 babies a month at this facility and sees about 80 patients a day. This small dispensary also provides services like family planning and antenatal care.
On the Tabitha Clinic in Kibera:
Staff also do home visits to households every other week, asking questions to identify possible health issues. For example, if someone has a cough or potential complications with a pregnancy, it initiates a specific set of questions to help determine the whether there is a problem that needs attention. I had the chance to go on a home visit to meet with a woman named Cynthia, a mother of five. It was interesting to see how the local health worker, Jaciuta, gathered surveillance information on Cynthia's family that was logged on a handheld PDA – technology put to good use. This allowed the home health worker to go back to the office and upload household health information on a daily basis. Sure beats old fashion paper record keeping!
From there, we walked through another part of Kibera to meet with a group of women. They told us about the daily struggles they face as well as some of the support they receive from a woman named Judy, a retired nurse who started her own organization that CARE supports as a local partner through our Local Links program. Judy helps the women start small businesses, like selling vegetables, to earn their own income.
The story of one woman, Mwinza Mwema, especially impressed me. She has seven children and two orphans in her care. Her vegetable stand was burned to the ground during the post-election violence in Kenya last year but she didn't give up hope. She takes on jobs washing clothes and dishes, making a little over a dollar a day. It never ceases to amaze me the resilience of women like Mwinza, who continues to have a positive attitude despite the hardship she faces. This is a woman who survived home childbirth, cutting the umbilical cords herself because she couldn't afford to go to a hospital. She was lucky to have survived and that her children still have a mother. She mentioned other women she knew who didn't survive home childbirth, a common practice in poor areas. Hopefully as more clinics like Tabitha go up, more people will start accessing health and family planning services.
To read more please visit CARE’s blog with additional “notes from the field.”
