On Friday Feb. 12th we travelled to see the organization Women Fighting AIDS in Kenya (WOFAK) in another part of Nairobi. After receiving a brief tour of the facility and an overview of what the organization does to help HIV infected women and families in Kenya, we were taken into homes of women who receive aid in the form of food and counseling from WOFAK. Since the government of Kenya began providing anti-retroviral therapy (ARVT) drugs for people suffering from HIV/AIDS, WOFAK has concentrated its efforts of helping to provide medicine to treat opportunistic infections, especially tuberculosis, and food (which is necessary for ARVTs to be effective). The majority of women have been left by their husbands, and left to support their families alone amidst stigma the community and the struggle to maintain their health and that of their children. Faced with undefeatable odds, these women often have nowhere to go and lack family support once their positive HIV status is discovered. The group I was with went into the home of a woman with two small children under the age of five, all of three of whom were HIV infected and currently taking ARVTs provided by the government, and sharing a single room with a bunk bed and a worn out love seat. The mother was not event thirty years old and was suffering from her third case of TB. Fortunately for the woman we visited, her husband was still around and working odd jobs he was able to find when his health did not fail. The major barrier facing her, aside from the struggle to maintain good health, was the inability to convince her husband to take his ARVTs regularly (especially when he felt well). When taken sporadically and only to treat opportunistic infections, patients can build up resistance to ARVTs, rendering them ineffective in treating any illness or in preventing transmission to others. Her story is one that is all too common among women in East Africa, and Kenya in particular. In the face of such misfortune in life, she held fast to a solid faith and dignity that any person should aspire to maintain.
On Saturday, Feb. 13th we drove to a part of Nairobi called Mathare, one of Africa’s largest and poorest slums just outside the city center to visit the Mathare Youth Sports Association (MYSA), and to aid in a community trash cleanup effort. Out of all the organizations we have been exposed to thus far, MYSA is probably the most impressive and inspiring. As the largest self-help youth sports and community service organization in Africa, MYSA offers over 15,000 youth “a sporting chance on and off the field”. Since 1987, MYSA has been working to foster community development through Mathare’s children. Membership is free and offers the kids in this area not only a chance to do more than play soccer, but to become happy healthy human beings through AIDS prevention programs, civic engagement (slum cleanup and environmental improvement projects), and by providing spaces for youth to pursue their academic potential through the establishment of study halls and libraries within the community. In addition to all of this, Haba na Haba (step by step) is a branch off of MYSA which offers classes and programs in the arts (singing, dancing, drumming, painting, music recording, etc.) You name it, MYSA does it, and if they don’t, they probably have plans to do it soon. Through the sports association, youth have the opportunity to win scholarships to both secondary school and some small university/college scholarships. For more information, you can go to www.mysakenya.org. MYSA is by far the most amazing organization that we have been fortunate enough to visit so far, they're definitely getting things done :).
