Kenya

The Association of People with AIDS in Kenya (TAPWAK)

Founded in 1990, TAPWAK was among the first support groups available for people living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHA) in Kenya.  The organization currently boasts a membership of more than 5,000 people and provides a forum for PLWHA to share their experiences and to seek solutions to address their health needs.   The Stephen Lewis Foundation is supporting TAPWAK’s work in Uganja and Nairobi to scale up counselling, awareness, home-based care and advocacy support for nearly 7,000 people living with HIV and AIDS.  Forty village support groups are conducting monthly group counselling sessions in a strategic move to bring smaller support groups to local communities.  Group therapy is an opportunity to reach 6,000 people with positive living support, from HIV care, prevention and treatment to nutrition counselling, disclosure, parenting skills and human rights issues.

TAPWAK’s Community Own Resource Persons (CORPS) and volunteers provide home-based care to clients in the community, including monthly food supplements to 100 people living with HIV andAIDS. TAPWAK also facilitates support for 200 children living with grandmothers, including vocational training for older children. The organization provides these grandmother-headed families with s mattresses and blankets, goats and seeds, fertilizers, farming tools and start-up labour to help improve household material and food security.  TAPWAK monitors the program and works with local government to provide veterinary and agricultural support. SLF support also includes some administrative and staffing costs.

Community Asset Building Development Programme

CABDA gives small loans to caregivers of orphans and vulnerable children so that they are able to set up a business at the individual or household level. At the same time, local caregivers are provided with a communal garden in order support other orphans in the community. Where possible, the children also help: those who are between the ages of 10 and 18 establish their own kitchen gardens for granny-caregivers and others who are needy in the community.

With SLF support, CABDA seeks to build sustainability and long-term impact. Funding goes to help needy orphans stay in school, strengthen savings-schemes, increase small income-generating loans to caregivers and build leadership skills among vulnerable children and youth. Each year, CABDA provides a small number of out-of-school youth with a vocational education including start-up equipment (such as sewing supplies or carpentry tools). Monthly group get-togethers for caregivers and for children function as distribution points for food and school-supplies. These gatherings also allow children to engage in recreational activities that reduce isolation and stigma. In addition, if granny-caregivers are sick, community volunteers help by growing their vegetables, managing their households and in some cases, providing them with live chickens for eggs and meat. Some administrative and staff support is also provided.

Community Research in Environment and Development Initiatives (CREADIS)

In western Kenya’s Bungoma District, almost 60% of the population lives  in poverty. CREADIS started here in 2000 in order to build knowledge and capacity among local communities so that they can become self-reliant and drive their own development process. 

SLF funding helps CREADIS improve the health and living standards of three Bungoma District groups: people living with HIV and AIDS; orphans and vulnerable children; and caregivers. CREADIS provides nutritional supplements, facilitates access to education at the primary and secondary school levels, offers skill-building programs, and sets up various kitchen gardens and other income generating activities. In addition, CREADIS set up 12 local support groups for people living with the virus and caregivers, each of which has now become involved in an income-generating project. Good linkages with government put CREADIS into the position of advising other, smaller NGOs and making sure that everyone works together. To achieve their goals, SLF also helps CREADIS with staffing and their monitoring and evaluation activities.

Ember Kenya Grandparents Empowerment Project (EMBER)

Ember Kenya’s Grandparent Empowerment Project supports grandparent-led households that are struggling to raise their grandchildren and vulnerable children in the face of AIDS. Since 2006, EMBER has assisted grandparents in the impoverished Samia District of western Kenya on Lake Victoria to enhance healthy childhood development, prevent HIV infection and to empower and improve grandparenting skills. Ember Kenya assists 850 grandparent-led families to build supportive networks, increase their self-reliance and access psychosocial care. The Stephen Lewis Foundation supports direct service delivery through ten active Grandparent Team Leaders to over 150 grandparent-headed families (121 headed by grandmothers and 29 by grandfathers), reaching 2,000 orphans and vulnerable children with health, education and nutrition assistance. Ten of these households will receive help with emergency house repair. An elected Grandparent Council manages a small emergency fund for the most impoverished families. The SLF also funds EMBER’s health insurance access program for 100 grandparents, educational support for 121 children and self-help income generation programs for families, including small fruit tree nurseries and goat farming. 

Grassroots Organizations Operating Together in Sisterhood (GROOTS)

GROOTS/Kenya is a grassroots network of over 2,500 women-led low-income community-based organizations and self-help groups, spanning 6 out of the 8 provinces in Kenya. The organization, which functions independently but affiliates with GROOTS international and the Huairou Commission (both global networks), employs three main strategies that are designed to promote local empowerment around issues related to poverty alleviation, leadership and governance, and HIV/AIDS:

• Rallying members of grassroots communities to develop collective actions and strategies
• Building the capacity and leadership of local women
• Promoting self-expression and advocacy at the community level, designed to influence policy, legislation and practice for the benefit of grassroots women and their communities

At the local level, some women – especially low-income grandmothers caring for orphans – face severe challenges. Recognising that outside help was needed, GROOTS reached out to the SLF for assistance in five Kenyan operational areas. They work with local community based organizations to promote grandmother-led dialogues, community mapping exercises (to assess and document the challenges facing grandmothers, as well as identify local resources), local advocacy and community mobilization, and some direct assistance. The direct assistance goes only to the most needy and involves training and start-up support for income-generating and savings programmes, stress-management, and improved health and paediatric-care. To facilitate implementation and follow-up, each community commits itself to creating a granny support group that meets regularly to implement activities. Once established, the groups are also given two goats and a demonstration plot with seedlings for organic farming. The SLF pays for project staff and expenses.

Kared-Fod Women’s Group

Thirty members make up Kared-Fod, a community based organization along the shore of Lake Victoria who seek to reduce the level of poverty and sense of powerlessness amongst their neighbours and peers. The challenges are enormous, as this part of western Kenya suffers from some of the country’s highest rates of HIV infection and poverty.

Kared-Fod targets its assistance to households who have the greatest difficulty protecting and providing for their most vulnerable children.  Services are tailored to the needs of each family and usually involve a combination of basic medical care, educational expenses for orphans attending school, counselling, psychosocial support, spiritual guidance, HIV prevention-education and/or the provision of food supplements, clothing and some shelter renovations. All of the assistance is based on years of experience, knowing what helps restore dignity and meets basic needs. Thus, SLF also helps with the purchase of mosquito nets, blankets, and sanitary pads for teenage orphan girls, and home-based care kits for Kared-Fod community health workers who regularly visit beneficiaries.

Because some orphans are badly treated in the community by adults who take advantage of their vulnerability, Kared-Fod organizes the local Committees for the Protection of Children and trains community leaders, caregivers and the children themselves in the principles of child rights.  In cases of dire hunger Kared-Fod offers nutritional supplements, although they prefer a more permanent solution whereby households are helped to grow their own food.  Within this context, the organization is currently piloting an irrigation system on communal land for use by and for people living with HIV and their families. The SLF also assists with some staffing and administrative costs.

Kenya Network of Women with AIDS

The Kenya Network of Women with AIDS (KENWA) is a grassroots membership organization that was formed in 1993 and is run by HIV-positive women for HIV-positive women, irrespective of race, culture, religion, or social status. Nationally, KENWA has over 7,000 members who are committed to:

• Challenge stigma, discrimination and isolation of people living with HIV and AIDS;
• Advocate for their own rights and for the rights of children who are orphaned and made vulnerable by HIV; and
• Support one another psychologically.

SLF funding supports KENWA in eight informal settlements within Nairobi and Kenya’s Central Province. Their goal is to improve access to treatment, care and support for women living with the virus and for HIV-affected orphans and vulnerable children. KENWA facilitates baseline tests and access to treatment, including home-based care and transport to and from treatment centres. Beneficiaries are encouraged to speak up about their situation and advocate for equal treatment under the law. Via monthly “group therapies” (peer support meetings), KENWA offers psychosocial support, counselling and life-skills education to women and children. Special annual events are organisedto offer emotional healing through games, dance and music.

Kiambu People Living with HIV/AIDS

Kiambu People Living with HIV/AIDS is a grassroots self-help community based organization that advocates and lobbies for people living  with HIV and AIDS and their families, focusing on issues of property inheritance, access to treatment, decision-making in reproductive health, employment issues, and education for all children regardless of their HIV status. They combine this advocacy with care and support to families in the community via home-based care, counselling, nutritional support and clothing, plus assistance for orphans to attend school.

To achieve all of these objectives, Kiambu has recruited and trained 22 dedicated volunteer Community Health Workers. To assist and motivate Kiambu’s volunteers, SLF funding ensures that they can receive a monthly stipend, training, transportation expenses and basic supplies. Most recently, the SLF also helped Kiambu start an income-generating project that also benefits some caregivers. Orphans and vulnerable children are helped through the provision of school fees and educational materials, clothing, school-based kids’ clubs and some supplemental nutrition. Lastly, the SLF helps Kiambu by paying for administrative costs and the implementation of an effective monitoring and evaluation system.

Liverpool Voluntary Counselling and Testing (LVCT)

Liverpool VCT is a leader in the field of HIV counselling and testing, with a special focus on reaching at risk and vulnerable groups, including survivors of sexual violence, people living with disabilities and HIV/AIDS and men who have sex with men (MSM).  LVCT’s more than 240 staff design programmes and services for those with the greatest risk of HIV infection, as well as providing  training, research, quality assurance and monitoring and evaluation. The organization’s Disability Programme, supported by the Stephen Lewis Foundation, aims to enhance effective communication for deaf clients and supports three support groups for deaf people. The programme sensitizes care and treatment at three provincial hospitals, has started “Introduction to Sign Language” training for sexual and reproductive health at those hospitals and trained sign language interpreters for work in medical settings.  At the three eaf voluntary counselling and testing (VCT)sites, there has already been a decrease in HIV prevalence among deaf clients.  LCVT successfully piloted the first sexuality and sexual health youth hotline in Kenya and the region, called “One-2-One”.

Living Positive Kenya

Possibly the most effective way to turn the tide of HIV/AIDS is to work hand-in-hand with groups of HIV-infected individuals who are committed to fight stigma and live positively, help prevent the HIV virus from spreading, and raise their children for a brighter, disease-free future. In low-income areas like the Gichagi and Mathere slums of Ngong in Kenya’s Rift Valley, these outcomes become easier to achieve when the positive living groups receive some direct support and can also work on income-generating activities. To that end, Living Positive Kenya has partnered with the Stephen Lewis Foundation to promote healthy living amongst HIV-infected women, empower the women psychologically to overcome the challenges they face, facilitate medical care, provide supplemental nutrition, help send children to school and provide them with a healthy meal, and work with the women to achieve economic independence by making handicrafts and other products for sale. The project also assists some grandmothers who care for orphans with similar services and it helps cover funeral expenses, rent for bedridden clients, and allowances for staff.

Nyakonya Community Based Organization

More than anywhere else in Kenya, Nyanza Province along the shores of Lake Victoria has suffered from the triple-ravages of malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. Every village overflows with orphans, overburdening the widows and grandmothers who care for them. When you ask orphans and their caregivers what assistance they want, invariably the answer is, “Help us attend school like other children, with uniforms and notebooks and pens, and live a healthy life.”

Nyakonya, which means “free support to vulnerable people,” is a community-based organization that aims to do just that. The SLF supports Nyakonya to maximize enrolment and reduce school drops-outs among orphans and vulnerable children, enhance support to and by people living with HIV/AIDS, and promote child rights. Via baseline research, Nyakonya identified several inhibitors of school performance starting with a lack of fees and uniforms, but also including “morning chores to do that result in lateness,” “psychosocial problems,” “a lack of hope about the future,” and “no time to study after school”. Nyakonya tackles these problems with small amounts of direct support to facilitate attendance, plus community workshops, the inclusion of homework clubs and health clubs at schools (thereby addressing prevention and care for HIV/AIDS and other diseases), teacher training, psychosocial counselling, and income-generating activities for caregivers. The SLF also pays for some staffing and administrative costs, and for the cost of monitoring and evaluation.

Pendeza Africa (PENAF)

When the SLF field representative first visited PENAF in western Kenya, the day’s plans suddenly shifted with the discovery of a starving infant who had to be brought to the hospital. The mother had died of AIDS a few weeks before and the grandmother, unschooled in how to handle the child, had become desperate. But with no vehicular transportation, phone, money or even the knowledge of what to do next, the baby was destined for death – that is, until PENAF stepped in and gave the child a second chance at life. Crisis management is common, the PENAF staff explained. Their work brings them to the most out-of-the-way villages where, one by one, they seek to help families and bring about positive change. 

While most of their work is not this dramatic, all of it is important. PENAF introduces revolving credit schemes, educational programmes for orphans and training in life-skills, and activities designed to preserve the environment and promote women’s empowerment. With support from the SLF, PENAF works with widows, grandmothers and older youth to enhance their ability to support themselves as well as orphans and other vulnerable children in their midst. Accordingly, PENAF has introduced various revolving loan funds; training courses in entrepreneurship, vocational skills and leadership; programmes on reproductive health and gardening techniques; and local support groups for mutual assistance and sustainability. In order to further assist elder caregivers, PENAF also introduced a medical support fund for grandmothers, supplementary food rations and school uniforms for “neediest orphans,”and a small bursaries scheme for exemplary students attending secondary school.

Ripples International (RI)

Ripples International was established in 2001 when the founders – Mercy and Chidi Ogbonna, a married couple — were inspired to respond to the appalling news paper headlines in the Kenya Nation that stated “Meru District rates highest in HIV Infection rate at 38%”.  At the time, few services existed for people living with HIV and AIDS in the region.

Ripples International is a grassroots faith-based organization that provides health care, HIV counselling and testing, and assistance to orphans and vulnerable children and their caregivers in 11 locations throughout Meru Central District. Ripples has a team of trained volunteers, caregiver support groups and partners who assist more than 11,000 orphans and vulnerable children and their families with health care, counselling education, nutrition, shelter, prevention and psychosocial support and economic empowerment.  To promote education and improved performance in school, the organization provides 500 children in primary and nursery with school uniforms, and pays school fees for 20 nursery school students and 50 children in secondary school. 

With SLF support, Ripples International provides food rations, agricultural support, counselling and life skills development to 500 children and their caregivers counselling and facilitates access to health care and referrals for 250 orphans and vulnerable children living with HIV/AIDS. The organization is also providing housing support, assistance with birth registration and microloans to 125 households in the community. 

WEM Integrated Health Services

In the mid-1990s, very little support existed for people living with HIV and their families in Kenya’s Central Province. Three local women decided to change that, and they used their own resources to establish HIV-related health care services for poor and marginalised people in their area. As their efforts grew and gained outside support, WEM also began offering psychosocial, economic and support services, for example to aged grandmothers who bear the burden of raising orphaned and vulnerable children.

WEM started their GRANI (Grandmother Resilience and Nursing Initiative) project in 2003, which SLF supports. WEM currently works with grandmothers in six village groups, paying special attention to their psychological, emotional, social and economic needs, in order to increase their ability to cope with ongoing stresses and challenges. The GRANI project also aims to sensitise and build the capacity of local service-providing institutions (e.g., hospitals, schools, other NGOs and agricultural extension services) to better address the needs of local grandmothers and their families. This includes strengthening the grandmothers’ access to banking, savings-and-loan programmes, improved household hygiene, small-scale farming and income-generating activities. After the famine and drought in 2009, WEM provided agricultural inputs and taught each group of grandmothers how to manage its own seed-bank in order to weigh, label and preserve good-quality seeds from one growing season to the next. The project also promotes various plant-diversification techniques and income-generating activities such as basket-weaving, making sisal mats, and small livestock production. Health care and psychosocial support are offered through home visits, counselling, a mobile clinic and access to voluntary counselling and testing (VCT).

Women Fighting AIDS in Kenya (WOFAK)

WOFAK is uniquely positioned as a national HIV support organization, as it is run both by women and for women who are infected or affected by HIV. As an advocacy organization, WOFAK works to improve policies and legislation that affect women and people living with HIV in Kenya. Over and over, they remind decision-makers that women and girls face a higher risk for infection than men; also more poverty, violence and responsibility as caregivers. In addition, WOFAK provides direct care to their constituents via home-based care, educational programmes, emotional support, and material assistance. To that end, WOFAK has established a network of seven resource centres across the country through which they provide one-on-one counselling, group support, training, outreach, and linkage to medical care. Their outreach targets marginalized groups such as young girls and women involved in the fishing trade along the shores of Lake Victoria, commercial sex workers, and pubescent girls still at school.

WOFAK also conducts home and hospital visits and – with SLF support – offers a range of support services to granny caregivers and orphans.  Those in greatest need receive the most assistance. This includes periodic gatherings and take-home food baskets, bereavement counselling, psychosocial and recreational activities, farm inputs for improved crop yields, income generating activities, and support for orphans to attend school. The SLF also helps with monitoring and evaluation costs, staffing and administrative expenses.

Young Women Campaign Against AIDS (YWCAA)

The founders of Young Women Campaign Against AIDS (YWCAA) started the organization based on their personal experiences with HIV, focusing on the care and support of orphans. Because they believe that care and prevention are closely linked, all YWCAA activities now integrate a prevention message, mostly concerning behaviour change and the reduction of vertical (mother to child) transmission.

YWCAA members have developed a special relationship with bar waitresses and illicit liquor-brewers, many of whom are widows and grandmothers and live in Nairobi’s slums. Working side-by-side with these women, YWCAA tries to reduce their exposure to HIV, advocate for improved access to healthcare and hygiene, and provide support to orphans and vulnerable children. With SLF assistance, they offer training in small business skills and provide start-up loans for income-generating projects that are designed to give participants a meaningful choice in how they earn a living – for example, highlighting those activities that are considered less high-risk to sexually transmitted diseases. Additionally, grandmothers and widows are taught basic home-nursing care (especially if they have HIV-positive children living with them), and meet together regularly to provide mutual support. A limited number of orphaned children receive subsidies for their school fees, uniforms, books and sanitary towels for girls. SLF funding also pays for some administrative and staff expenses, which include training for YWCAA staff and board members so that they can serve as good role models and advocates.

• Project descriptions last updated April 2011