Project: Witinyie Upendo Boda Boda Youth Group
Was formed in 2005 with an aim of sensitizing the community on all matters of AIDS.
The group is located in Bukura, 40 km from Kakamega Town , West-Kenya.
The group is run by young members from 15 to 25 years of age.
The group gives counselling to all individuals who come to their office. A trained nurse, Nancy Indusa (nancyindusa@yahoo.com), is the Centre Manager and gives advice for all kind of subjects. She and some volunteers are also going to homes of people with AIDS (PLWA) and look after them and their children.
The main target are youth – in youth friendly discussions they talk about all kind of problems and sometimes they request for information from “Kranich”.
For orphans under 9 years they run free Early Child Education with the aim to provide access to governmental free education.
Here is the General Report for the month of January 2007
I have had a lot of clients who would wish to know their status so as to plan their future and this is due to the seminar which we had on 1 st December. So many people have realized that if you are positive and hide your status, this makes you to die faster unlike when you decide to be open. This helps you to get advice and maintain your health and take care of your family. For the youth they have got to do a lot in future and they are expected to be prepared. If not positive, they have to avoid infection and if already positive, accept it and live normal life without infecting others.
Our home based care visits we offer physical and emotional assistance. We had two clients dying due to failure of taking the drugs as advised by the doctor. Thus developed resistance to the anti retroviral drug and they died. We are now sensitizing the remaining to follow the instructions carefully to avoid such problems. We are still assisting many to know that the Government is providing drugs for free or little money to PLWAs.
Youth friendly discussions:
Over 50 youths turned up even during holidays. Even other groups had interest to discuss with us. They felt these things are so sensitive and should be talked about by everybody countrywide.
- Sexuality and teenagers
- AIDS and the youth
- Use of condoms even in schools
- HBC in schools
They said that there are some youth who are in school and already infected but nobody is bothered about their status. They are exposed to unbalanced meals, cold, heavy punishments and no proper medication and thus they die quickly. The youth also blamed their parents for not talking about above issues with their children at home.
The youth demanded freedom to socialize, to own property, in marriage, worship among others.
Western lifestyle was found to have effected the youth in Kenya at length whereby some forms of sexual activities such as lesbianism and homosexuality was found to have been adopted from tourists and films. This was highly rebuked as they will be going against God `s will. About freedom of socialisation, members claimed that they are being denied. They have no right to spend time with each other as the older members of the community mistake them with sexual relationships, criminal acts and plans.
Property ownership: village elders and assistant chiefs claim youth to be thieves or robbery suspects as they own property and accounts. During the discussions we realized that more youth have risen up from the sleep they had before and they now indulge in money generating activities like farming and small scale business saving the little they get.
Church leaders stick to their order doctrines which do not allow youth to bring instruments or compose their own Christian hymns.
Sex, commercial and otherwise: Members stated the increase in commercial sex workers in streets as well as in villages and institutions. It was said that mostly girls are the ones who initiate the idea of commercializing sexual activities. This was opposed highly by girls as they did not agree with the fact that they are the ones who ask money, material, favours for sex with men. During the discussion we talked about sugar daddies, sugar mummies and youth who use money. But beside poverty we found out that some do it for pleasure. We also found that commercial sex does not lead to STDs and unwanted pregnancies because they normally have safer sex protected by condoms. Most agreed to advice youth to abstain. But as this point we were not able to discuss fully hence made some members leave the room without getting satisfied.
On World AIDS Day: during the seminar the facilitator standing declares freely her status
The orphans in our nursery school
The orphans get porridge, sometimes their only meal per day. Here they have just put on their new uniforms.
One of our income generating activities are the Boda Boda, bicycles who carry passengers to town. During driving they discuss about AIDS prevention.
Our HBC volunteer holding one of our clients – a child of 7 years and positive. Besides him is the mother who is also positive and already on ARVs.
Our HBC volunteer with the child who is living positive just before he wants to bring the boy to the hospital
The parents of these orphans died last year. The older one takes care for the little ones. The volunteer brings food and cares for them.
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