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Roselyne Grace Osoo
Posted
February 8, 2010
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Kenya
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
HIV/AIDS continues to wreck havoc on the people’s lives globally. Quite manifest now are its consequences on OVCs as well as PLWAs who happen to be predominantly women [widows]. The plight of these two groups need urgent attention. It is against this background that this project has been conceived by the Kenya Women Kasarani Self Help Group.
The main objective of this project is to improve the welfare of orphans and widows infected and affected by HIV/AIDS by mitigating the socio economic impact of the same. It seeks to achieve this by addressing the educational as well as nutritional needs of the orphans. The proposed activities include establishment of a day care feeding centre and also sensitization and encouragement of various families to adopt the total orphans and hence accord them shelter and subsequent meals. For the widows living with HIV, the organization seeks to strengthen the capacity of the care givers in areas such as counselling, psycho-social support, palliative care and spiritual nourishment.
The project envisages varied impact. It is believed that the proposed treatment and care targeting the PLWA will result in them living longer and enjoying an improved quality of life that is devoid of the pain that characterises the opportunistic infections. Secondly, targeting both the OVCs and PLWAS who are predominantly widows, would enable them grow up with a sense of equality, love and inclusiveness which is the remedy for stigma and discrimination.
Thirdly, facilitating the OVCs to improve their comparative competitive advantages in the face of the myriad obstacles is a sure way of dealing with low esteem and opening the gates of self-reliance. Finally, it is envisaged that the lessons learnt and best practices identified and documented in the course of the implementation would be disseminated to the various stakeholders for possible adoption and replication in other areas where the need is that great.
1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1 The organization
The Kenya Women Kasarani Self Help Group for the widows and orphans is a non profit making community based organization that has been operating as a small welfare organization concerned with the plight of widows and orphans. In the face of a tremendous increase in the number of these vulnerable groups, it was thought necessary to structure the organization in order to have a focused response to the plight of the targeted orphans and widows. In essence, therefore, the organization was formally registered in the year 2006 with the relevant department of the ministry of Gender, Culture and Sports. The organization has a distinct commitment in seeking to improve the welfare of the vulnerable and disadvantaged groups.
In order to realize her vision of promoting a just and healthy society built on the potential initiatives and capabilities of individuals, families and communities, the organization sought through her mission to harmonize and integrate local efforts for wholistic community empowerment. It was envisaged that this could be achieved through the targeted programming on issues that affect the weak, marginalized and also vulnerable groups.
Based on the observed need, The Kenya Women Kasarani Self Help Group sought to address the numerous problems being faced in the slums through intervention in various sectors. It was envisaged that The Kenya Women Kasarani Self Help Group could effectively realize her vision by delving into sectors such as health, education and welfare of the disadvantaged and vulnerable groups who are reeling under the weight of the HIV/AIDS scourge. The Kenya Women Kasarani Self Help Group thus began on the path of establishing linkages and mapping out strategies for this realization.
1.2 Interventions [Previous and current]
The Kenya Women Kasarani Self Help Group for the widows and orphans works with people of all cadres namely, students, community leaders and small groups implementing various projects in areas often neglected because of their pathetic situations such as the urban slums. Some of the key areas of intervention include the following:
(a) Sponsorship Program
The Kenya Women Kasarani Self Help Group supports education of the poor children through the provision of school uniforms, medical care, school fees, food and socio-psychological as well as spiritual development. Within this program, the
(b) Feeding program
The organization provides food for orphaned children at given intervals. For example, the children benefit from two meals a day for six days in a week. This is a balanced diet meant to improve the health of the children.
(c) HIV/AIDS victims Medicare and Counselling
The project takes care of the bed-ridden and are unable to earn a living for their families. These provisions include food, rent and clothing.
(d) HIV/AIDS orphans care:
The project supports over 150 children orphaned by HIV/AIDS. They are facilitated to access education, food and clothing. Their parents passed away when they were enrolled in the programs. A total of fifty of these are housed in a home established by the organization.
(e) Bursary/scholarships:
The program pays fees for street and destitute children who qualify to join secondary schools. The program also supports students in secondary schools and universities.
(f) Women empowerment:
The project provides basic training skills in tailoring and dress making to mothers and also Micro-credit scheme program, which caters for women with business skills. The women are assisted with funds to enable them to start micro-business to support their families.
It is important to note that the organization has continued to play a pivotal role in the area of HIV/AIDS. For instance, the organization has continued to participate effectively in prevention initiatives as well as taking care of the PLWAs who can not equally take care of their families through any meaningful productive labor. The main areas of assistance have focused on the provision of food, clothing as well as psycho-social support. Similarly, the organization has continued to offer orphan care with emphasis on education, food, and clothing. In all these endeavours, the organization continues to rely on individual well wishers and corporate donor organizations.
1.3 Partnerships/Networks
The Kenya Women Kasarani Self Help Group collaborates with local government at all levels and with NGOs at the local and national levels. The organization works within the strategies and programming framework of government and coordinates all development projects and activities with government efforts. The Kenya Women Kasarani Self Help Group is transparent in program planning and implementation and involves key officials from related government sector departments in field implementation, monitoring and evaluation activities.
The Kenya Women Kasarani Self Help Group is a registered member CBO and thus participates in a district network of CBOs/CSOs/FBOs/NGOs with intra sectoral linkage. In order to coordinate activities and avoid duplicating efforts of other NGOs, The Kenya Women Kasarani Self Help Group ensures adequate liaison and collaboration with all the stakeholders operating in our project areas.
As a major stakeholder in the fight against HIV/AIDS, The Kenya Women Kasarani Self Help Group is also a member of the National AIDS NGO Consortium (KANCO). KANCO is an umbrella body that brings together all the groups working for the reduction in the spread of HIV/AIDS. Its mandate includes liaison between members, coordination with government, capacity building and advocacy. Through this consortium, strategic information on HIV/AIDS issues, dialogue with government decision-makers and opportunities for capacity development and training are available to CMA.
2.0 BACKGROUND INFORMATION
2.1 The HIV/AIDS situation on the ground.
The city of Nairobi, just like most urban centers in Kenya, has been identified as a region with relatively high prevalence of HIV/AIDS. The most vulnerable groups are the youth, women and more especially circumstantial sex workers and migrant casual laborers. Behavior change critical for the effective prevention and reduction is still at its lowest level in most of the slum areas where these people live.
Although there are many NGOs, FBOs or Churches and CBOs operating within the city of Nairobi, little impact has been registered in this control endeavor. What cannot also evade memory is that there has been little intervention on HIV/AIDS prevention in the slum areas due to the reluctance by the various interest groups to work in remote areas which present with them numerous challenges and difficulties. For instance, life in the slums is quite unfriendly to outsiders since they are characterized by criminal acts such as all time thuggery, mugging, burglary, drug abuse and even rape. Similarly, the infrastructure is terribly compromised as a consequence of lack of proper policy guidelines. This has resulted in poor environmental sanitation, poor waste disposal mirrored by flying toilets and crowded shanties.
Being one of the most densely populated regions in Kenya, there are still no exact and properly documented statistics on the HIV/AIDS situation in the city. It still heavily relies on statistics that are based on projections as well as inferences based on specific case studies, which might not reflect the real situation in the city. It is only recently that more interest is now shifting to the slums and so some stakeholders are seeing the need to embark on carrying out a situational analysis and documentation of statistics in a bid to establish the HIV/AIDS impact in the specific areas
Despite the above scenario, the impact of the scourge is glaring. Reports obtained from the ministry offices shows that 60% of those who have tested positive in the past decade or so were high-risk groups mainly the youth, women and migrant laborers who are mainly men living in the slums. The spread of the disease continues to have significant effect not only on the demographic composition of the city population but it has also caused major dents on the Socio-economic fabric, as families invest all their life savings on ailing relatives and even the burden of funeral expenses due to HIV/AIDS has become unbearable in the slums.
In reality the devastation is quite evident as demonstrated by the overwhelming presence of orphans who seek assistance from the Kenya Women Kasarani Self Help Group’s intervention projects.
Likewise the increase in number of HIV/AIDS related illnesses, orphans and widows/widowers quite classically show that the magnitude of the problem has been so great in the city. And the study also shows that 60% of the beds in the health facilities situated within the urban city slums are occupied by people with HIV related infections. This percentage leaves out the many number of people who, though infected, resort to traditional or spiritual ' healing.
2.2 Problem statement
For the last two decades since the onset of the HIV/AIDS crisis, slums of major cities are still perceived as the hub of the epidemic with its grave demographic and socio-economic consequences. The HIV/AIDS epidemic is pervasive and kills the weak such as the very young and the old as well as those who are in their prime who are described as the fittest. It is reported that it hits active young adults the hardest thus the population it leaves behind in its wake of destruction is usually less able to cope because it has lost its most productive sector or category of the population.
The education sector, for instance, is considered as one of the areas worst hit by the scourge. Education is seen as both a cornerstone of development and a measure of its success. Unfortunately, in the early stages of the epidemic, HIV/AIDS tended to affect disproportionately the more skilled and the better educated. So the cost of even maintaining the number of existing professionals began to rise tremendously. As the HIV/AIDS epidemic grows, it tends to focus more on the poorest and the most disadvantaged.
Again, education suffers, as more children are kept away from school to care for sick relatives and the family can no longer afford to send them to school. Any community needs self-confidence to undertake development activities. But HIV/AIDS undermines that process through the despair and poverty that a severe epidemic bequeaths in its wake. At the same time, already poor communities are often too concerned about immediate needs to give any serious consideration to a disease whose impact lie hidden 10 years in the future.
More pathetic is that the AIDS pandemic imposes a double burden on women who are already more vulnerable to HIV infection. Besides, the pandemic affects women in their role as providers of care in the family and community at large. Apart from other tasks in and outside the household, women are expected to take care of their husbands, children and other family members with related illnesses. In case the woman herself becomes infected with HIV, the burden becomes dramatically heavier.
It is against this background of the observed chilling effects of HIV/AIDS to the Kasarsani community that the women came together to form this organization and hence the conception of this project. The Kenya Women Kasarani Self Help Group’s HIV/AIDS project works with youth and women groups at the grassroots in its attempt to mitigate the socio-economic impact of HIV/AIDS. The groups work with the community in the areas such as feeding, counseling and social support of the PLWAs.
2.3 Justification
The biggest challenge in Nairobi’s slums such as Kasarani now is how to control the AIDS pandemic, support and care for both the infected and affected, orphans and also socio-economic support for grassroots groups, which are involved in HIV/AIDS activities but are working on voluntary basis. Although the AIDS public information program has raised awareness with NACP reporting that 80% of Kenyans have some Knowledge of the disease, it is important to note that there are some key areas that are still neglected. For instance, the plight of OVCs require a critical consideration as well as the palliative care of PLWA.
Various reasons have been advanced to account for this deplorable HIV/AIDS situation in the targeted slum areas. Poverty seems to be one of the major obstacles. Poverty is seen as a pull factor to risky sexually practices in the slums. The desire to eke out a living is what promotes the youth (boys and girls) and women to indulge in commercial sex work. On the other hand poverty makes it very difficult to manage AIDS among the poor. Since it is associated with many opportunistic infections, the inhibition of full-blown AIDS becomes very difficult, as even cheap drugs for controlling common ailments are unaffordable. Ironically, this is the situation which prevails in the numerous Nairobi slums such as Kasarani.
It has been established that most of the stakeholders have only concentrated in tackling one aspect of the HIV/AIDS problem i.e. public education. Other issues such as direct care for the infected and affected such as PLWAs and orphans have been clearly neglected in the campaigns. They have not realized that addressing just a few areas, though significant is not enough.
It is with the above in mind that the Kenya Women Kasarani Self Help Group HIV/AIDS project has come up with an integrated approach that seeks to address more salient problems. This is proposed to be approached in a manner that incorporates aspects such as counseling, home based care, support for orphans and widows/widowers and initiation of income generating activities. In nutshell, approach is being sensitive to the general welfare of both the infected and affected.
3.0 OBJECTIVES
3.1 Goal
To improve the welfare of those infected and affected by HIV/AIDS by mitigating the socio economic impact of the same especially on widows and orphans.
3.2 Broad Objective
To strengthen the capacities of the targeted slum communities to respond effectively to the challenge of HIV/AIDS.
3.3 Specific objectives.
• To offer and provide counseling services to PLWA s and their families through both group therapy and individual support.
• To establish a kitty that can support the education of needy orphans through sponsorship programs
• To build and support community based efforts initiated to respond to the AIDS epidemic.
• To establish a feeding center to cater for the nutritional needs of OVCs
• To facilitate the acquisition of education materials by the OVCs such as uniforms as well as reading and writing materials
• To minimize the social ills caused by HIV/AIDS through material, spiritual and psychological support to clients and their families.
• To mobilize and involve the vulnerable groups (women and the youth) in the prevention and further spread of HIV/AIDS
• To train wide range of caregivers on issues related to prevention and management of HIV/AIDS.
4.0 METHODOLOGY
4.1 Geographical area
The project will be implemented in two sprawling Nairobi slums namely, Kisumu Ndogo and Korogocho. All these are in Kasarani Division situated on the Eastern side of Nairobi. As is characteristic of any other urban slum area in the developing countries, the situation here is pathetic and a reflection of absolute penury and squalor. Most people here live below the poverty level where they are unable to afford three square meals a day.
4.2 Target Population
The project proposal has been developed on the basis of observed difficulties faced by a certain cadre of community that is perceived to be marginalized and hence quite vulnerable. In this case it recognized the extreme vulnerability of orphans, widows who are victims of the HIV/AIDS scourge and its attendant debilitating socio-economic consequences. The project targets the youth and women groups between the ages of 18-40 years.
4.3 Strategies of Implementation
The Kenya Women Kasarani Self Help Group has put in place various strategies that will be adopted in the implementation of the proposed project. In order to deal effectively with the plight of orphans, the organization proposes both relief and sustainable approaches. The organization seeks to pay special attention to the educational needs of the orphans by endeavouring to provide the basic educational infrastructures.
Similarly, whereas the organization proposes to establish a feeding program that will cater for their nutritional needs during the day time, various families will also be sensitized and encouraged to adopt the total orphans and hence accord them shelter and subsequent meals.
In order to take good care of the widows living with HIV, the organization seeks to strengthen the capacity of the care givers in areas such as counselling, psycho-social support, palliative care and spiritual nourishment.
4.4 Data Management and Analysis
The Kenya Women Kasarani Self Help Group acknowledges the virtual importance of data for both the organization and the donor. Therefore, measures have been put in place to ensure that data is generated and analysed in the course of the entire implementation period. This will be done in various ways. First the implementing staff would provide monthly reports to the programmes Coordinator. The programs officer would, on the other hand, be engaged in systematic observation and documentation of inputs/resources, processes or activities as well as outputs and outcomes.
These data would be kept at the organization’s premises in both manuscript and electronic form in order to facilitate effective and efficient reference. Analysis of the collected data would be conducted at the stipulated periods in order to identify the weaknesses and strengths that would help shape the outcome of the project. From such activities the organization would be able to generate reports that would be sent to the donors as appropriate and as agreed upon.
5.0 WORKPLAN
5.1 Project Period/Time Frame
The 1st phase of the project will run for 10 months, starting in April 2007 and ending in December 2007.
5.2 Activities
• Mobilization and sensitization of the various cadres of the targeted project beneficiaries
• Identification, selection and subsequent registration of the targeted OVCs and the infected widows
• Identification and selection of volunteer caregivers to be trained to offer HBC
• Meetings with selected groups, provincial administration and other key stakeholders to promote partnership and authentification of the beneficiaries.
• Setting up and establishing a feeding center for the registered OVCs
• Preparation and provision of meals to the targeted OVCs
• Purchase and subsequent provision of learning materials such as school uniforms as well as reading [reference] and writing with affirmative action on girls
• Monitoring of the project activities throughout the implementation period.
• Terminal Evaluation of the progress and impact.
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Organization
This resource was created by:
KENYA WOMEN KASARANI SELFHELP GROUP
It is important to note that the organization has continued to play a pivotal role in the area of HIV/AIDS. For instance, the organization has continued to participate effectively in prevention initiatives as well as taking care of the PLWAs who can not equally take care of their families through...
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