Category: Kenya

Please receive kind regards and best wishes from Akado ladies. It is with lots of thanks and gratitude that we wish to express our heartfelt appreciation for your organization’s humanitarian aid and life saving support to desperate and needy orphans below the age of five from the poorest marginal child headed households/families in Mbita.

Note: If you are interested in the lastest news about this project go to http://www.bethecause.org/hopeheartandlove

Our meeting with Jane, the Project Co-ordinator was brief but very informative, educative and impressive. I sincerely learnt a lot from our short discussion with her. She was very welcoming and friendly and I would wish to express a lot of thanks to William (Vickie’s driver) for his kindness and support. He took his time to take me all the way to Ngong (WEEP’s office) and back to town with the nets. May God bless him and Jane.

Vickie was very helpful to me though it was not possible to meet her personally. We talked over the phone and she managed to arrange for transportation and other things. I found her support very important as it easened my problem of reaching there by public means. Thanks to her!

I found WEEP Project very innovative and inspiring. Such a project can greatly help in reducing stigmatization, victimization, the risk and vulnerability of widows and orphans in regard to HIV/AIDS. It promotes self-reliance and improves the income status of many widows who could undergo untold suffering.

Like in Mbita, where many helpless widows are forced to succumb to sexual demands of fishermen with whom they are compelled to “trade sex for fish”, I found the WEEP Project worth replication here in Mbita. The project, in my view is also relevant in promotion and enhancement of widows’ human rights since it empowers the post-test group (widows) in their fight against repugnant cultural traditions which expose many, especially in Mbita as easy targets of sexual exploitation i.e. widow inheritance, widow cleansing among others.

I was impressed to learn that the widows can support themselves and improve care for their families without having to rely on relatives. This is very important in reducing stigmatization associated with the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

WEEP project can also greatly enhance psychotherapy through sharing of experiences and problems and possibly finding solutions.

Akado carried out a household survey in January 2005 on HIV/AIDS, Malaria, water and sanitation in our project area where 13% (1,844.96) were found to be orphans while 5% 709.6) were widows. The survey further indicated that only 51% (7,237) out of 14,192 were using mosquito nets. Majority of those not using nets were found to be widows, orphans and the elderly from the poorest and marginalized households.

In brief, within this first quarter, the nets provided by “Be the Cause” are going to be distributed to 100 desperate orphans we are currently supporting. Later on, we shall seek means of supporting the large number of children under 5 years and pregnant mothers and the elderly in our project are who are at greatest risk of catching malaria.

During the distribution of the nets, Akado will invite all the beneficiaries (care providers and orphans) to a Malaria Care Clinic/Workshop to educate them on the use and treatment of the nets in malaria prevention.

According to our survey about 375 orphans aged below 5 years are desperately in need of mosquito nets. ould very much wish to have a meeting with Vickie to discuss any possibility of replicating a similar project in Mbita.

In conclusion, kindly express our heartfelt appreciation to the “Be the Cause” family, WEEP Project and Power of Love foundation and especially Alka, Sukh and his team. You are very special to us.

May God bless all those involved in this vital project.

Yours sincerely,

Joyce Ouma.

This is a letter I received by email today. It is both a note of appreciation for the three organizations involved in this project: Be the Cause, HEART and the Power of Love and also a description of the dire circumstances facing the clinic and the community of Mbita, which they serve.

Note: If you are interested in the lastest news about this project go to http://www.bethecause.org/hopeheartandlove

Dear Stacey,

Kindly accept our sincere and heart felt appreciations and gratitude to Be the cause, HEART, Hope and Power of Love organizations of your kindness and generosity which will go along way in alleviating human suffering and saving lives.

Neither words nor statistics can adequately capture the human tragedy of poorest elderly widows grieving of their dying orphaned-grand children from malaria without any hope in their lives in our project area

In Mbita, over 153 vulnerable elderly widows over 67 years are learning to be mothers to their orphaned-grand children, about 30 years after they had their last babies.

These orphaned grand children are more vulnerable to malaria which is highly prevalent in the are and are ever sickly and dying while their elderly grannies does not know what to do about it.

Still engulfed with repugnant cultural peculiarities, the elderly widows associate malaria symptoms, illness and deaths with witch craft and have no means of taking their ill children to Health Care Centers due to their inability to walk and therefore result to traditional self-medication which are irrelevant and ineffective often leading to loss of lives

Under the current situation, these ageing foster parents (widows) are neglected or ignored, since only “pregnant mothers” are entitled to Nets, despite the fact that immune system of the aged widows are weak and that they are poorest and marginal families. Homes visits to these elderly foster parents in Aids-ravaged Mbita area is horrifying and traumatizing. Watching helpless young orphaned children lying and vomiting in the scorching sun with their poor disabled, aged caretakers crying or shedding tears is the most traumatizing situation Akado Clinical Team experience in our daily work.

“I would rather die than seeing these my grand children dying and there is nothing I can do about it,” says Lewnida, a widow aged about 73 years.

But many elderly widows like Lewnida, have myriad of ill-health problems too large families with over 10 orphaned children who have had both parents die and their homesteads clattered with graves all over every where.

These orphan children under the custody of ageing foster parents live under pathetic conditions of poor hygiene and sanitary conditions, stunting hunger, poor shelter and acute lack of access to health care/services.

The elderly poor widows have no source of income and solely rely and live on the mercy of their God and relatives which is quite unpredictable.

Some widows like are over burdened and easily exploit by their casual employers. “Since my husband’s death, I have tried best working for my neighbor in a scorching sun all the days to enable my children survive, but I suddenly lost two of my daughters to Malaria. Today, I am taking care of my husband and two daughter’s graves………… but there isn’t much i could do to save them”.

This elderly widow’s two daughters live could have been saved with one mosquito net costing about $8.00

With as little as $8.00 you can greatly “save the live” of at least two desperately needy orphan children, give hope to them and increase their survival opportunities by at least 50%.

These ageing widows and young children are desperately in need of your help and shall continue waiting in hope for your kindness and generosity in “order to survive”

Please, “donate a Net and save a life” through be the cause, Hope Power of Love organizations and Akado Medical Clinic will ensure its open, transparent and timely distribution to the deserving needy cases, maintenance of nets and start an Income Generating Activity (Mosquito Nets Making) for the elderly widows at Mbita to raise funds for their families

May God bless all those involved in this vital project to desperate needy orphaned children below 5 years and their ageing foster parents.