Morning Report, Live From Mumias

We have a new blog in the final stages of publication right now, but wanted to keep you all updated with this morning report. Thanks for following us!



*Disclaimer: This is from our first week, before we had helmets!

The Battle Against HIV/AIDS

We have just passed the half-way point of our GROW internship here in Mumias, Kenya—and yet I am still being blown away every day by WOPLAH’s inspiring work within this community. WOPLAH’s mission to address the pain and suffering of orphans, vulnerable children, and people living with HIV/AIDS in Western Kenya tackles the most prevalent health issue in their country. According to the UNAIDS World AIDS Day Report 2012 an estimated 1.6 million Kenyans are living with HIV, around 1.1 million children have been orphaned by AIDS, and in 2011 nearly 62,000 people died from AIDS-related illnesses.

After seeing such powerful numbers, I couldn’t help but wonder why the HIV/AIDS epidemic is still so prevalent and I wanted to dive deeper into how WOPLAH is helping to eradicate this disease.

The WHY

Shortly after the HIV/AIDS emerged in the early 1980’s, Jonathan Mann—the founding Director of the World Health Organization’s former Global Programme on AIDS—framed the HIV and AIDS epidemic in three phases: the HIV infection epidemic, the AIDS epidemic, and the epidemic of social, cultural, economic, and political responses to HIV/AIDS. Unfortunately, over the course of history societal norms have marginalized our perception of the disease and the people afflicted with it. Although I was familiar with America’s negative associations with HIV/AIDS, the GROW team and I thought it would be a good idea to ask our program coordinator Edwin about Kenya’s HIV/AIDS associations. It was interesting to find that the negative associations prevalent in America and Kenya are fairly parallel, with stereotypes such as: homosexuality, prostitution, commercial sex, drug usage, and not being faithful. However I was surprised when Edwin told us that whole tribes, communities, and clan cultures have their own stigmas and stereotypes that affect their status in society and can interact (either for better or worse) with the connotations of HIV/AIDS. Many individuals in Kenya face heavy discrimination due to the negative attitudes, or stigma, related to HIV/AIDS. The stigma around HIV/AIDS is embedded in societal structures (social, cultural, economic, and political) and it is crucial to consider these factors when addressing the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Kenya.

The HOW

WOPLAH was founded in 2008 by eleven individual community members—who became known as the Ambassadors of Hope (AOH)—that saw the need to reduce stigma for people living with HIV/AIDS and their families through support groups, income generating activities (IGAs), community health dialogues, and other WOPLAH programs.  These initiatives address individual, relational, and societal stigmas recognizing the importance of all three. Tackling HIV/AIDS-related stigma from multiple levels allows WOPLAH to use different social, cultural, economic, and political avenues in their programs.

Support Groups-

·      Empower positive individuals on how to live positively through education

·      Give discriminated individuals a sense of community and belonging

Income Generating Activities-

·      Empowers beneficiaries to take ownership of their IGAs by providing training

·      Enables beneficiaries to gain an income (for medications, food, etc.)

·      Provides nutrition for health and deters ARV defaulting

Community Health Dialogues-

·      Gives community members a voice in their community about health issues

·      Brings together community leaders, health workers, and local administration to make solutions to health issues

I feel as if I have only scratched the surface of how WOPLAH is impacting their community and helping to eradicate this disease. This grassroots organization has connected with companies, organizations, government support, and key local actors to create a movement towards health equity. And I assure you that this wonderful organization filled with dedicated and passionate people will stop at nothing to reach their vision.

-Desi Hartman (Psychology Major, Global Health Minor, Colorado College Class of 2016)

On the Subject of Babies...

Aside from the fact that everywhere we go small children come sprinting from every direction yelling "Mzungu! Mzungu!" meaning white people or foreigners in Swahili, it seems that everything we do here is in some way directly or indirectly related to babies. For example, this morning we woke up to some strange sounds that we hadn't heard yet...and there are A LOT of strange sounds here. When we were leaving for the day I noticed some small furry figures huddled under one of the goats that lives in our compound. I thought at first they were cats which seemed odd, and as I got closer I realized they were baby goats - newborn baby goats!! They must have been born last night as they have adorable rolls of excess skin and stumble everywhere because they are just learning to walk. That was a great morning surprise after another day waking up to a power outage lasting from the night before.

Once we could finally pull ourselves away from the newborn members of our compound, we rode "boda bodas" (motorbike taxis) to a school. This school only has about 30 students, all of which come from families with at least one HIV-positive member; 8 of them are living positively themselves. This school was started by WOPLAH (and is one of Edwin's "babies") because this community was identified as having many vulnerable children who could not afford school. They were able to secure a small, one-room, mud school house and opened the school in 2008 with Edwin teaching full-time. They now have two volunteer teachers, but Edwin still goes to the school about once a week to teach and play with the kids. 

When we walked into the little room, the children greeted us with a song and spent the next 20 minutes of their morning lesson half-heartedly reciting various english words, letters and sounds but mostly focusing their attention on us. The students' ages ranged from 4-11, with the smallest children sitting in the front and the oldest in back. Soon it was breaktime and we went outside to play games and hand out stickers and lollipops! Although it was hard not to think about the level of education each child should have theoretically attained at their respective ages, I could also clearly see the importance of giving these children an opportunity for early-child development when they would otherwise be sitting at home or getting into trouble; it is amazing WOPLAH has been able to provide these children with valuable skills, socialization and a safe harbour that is no doubt better than any alternative.

After inviting Edwin to our house for a lunch of eggs and rice (scrambled eggs was the only semi-American food we could conjure up to share), we hopped on the "boda bodas" again to attend a self-help group where Edwin would be lecturing. He began by asking one of the members to do a recap of last week's lecture: a demonstration of proper female condom usage. Although we were all admitedly a bit uncomfortable watching a man literally use hand-motions to show how the condom should be inserted, it was a valuable and interesting experience to learn that people are taking these measures seriously and are willing to learn. Edwin proceeded to give a lecture about disclosure of one's HIV status. It is fascinating listening to him lecture about this, as he takes great care in elaborating on the delicate nature of disclosing one's status. He explained that it is a process; one should carefully choose who they tell first as well as the timing of the conversation and how to go about unfolding the story. He also highlighted the benefits to disclosing one's status: family members can help by picking up meds and being generally supportive, longer lifespan, eradication of self-stigma, more easily able to succesfully integrate into society etc. My favorite part about listening to Edwin's educational lectures is that he always has his audiences laughing and smiling; and the amount of passion in his voice cannot go unnoticed. 

So, each of our activities today was, in some way, related to babies: there were the newly born goats that greeted us as we left for our daily activities, the children in WOPLAH's school who were babies of HIV-positive parents, and Edwin's talk which concerned birth control methods and the effects of disclosure on family members (including one's children). 

- Nicole Jorgenson '14