Category: Service Vacations

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.

Greetings,

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

I am writing to let you all know about a very special project that our organization, Be the Cause is undertaking. This is a project in collaboration with two other non-profit organizations: The Power of Love and the Health Education Africa Resource Team (HEART). Together we are creating, purchasing and distributing malaria nets, made outside of Nairobi which will be distributed from the Akado Clinic to the community in Mbita, Kenya. I am writing to enlist your support and help.

This project is truly amazing, as it combines the resources of these three organizations for a combined effect of providing income to women and their families and in addition, providing malarial prevention nets to small children. As you may know, three members of Be the Cause after visiting South Africa this last December, went on to Mbita, Kenya, where they volunteered with the Akado clinic for several weeks. While there they administered a health survey to members of the community. At the end of their project they concluded that there are not enough malaria nets available for the children of the community. Although, the Kenyan government has a program to supply, at no cost, treated malaria nets to the clinic, the shipments of nets to the clinic are both unpredictable and sporadic. So, after their return to the United States there was some discussion among the Be the Cause volunteers. It was decided to begin a new project to buy and ship malaria nets to the Akado clinic.

Once, this was decided the next step was to find a supplier of the nets. Here is where serendipity entered the picture. I believe moments of synchronicity in one’s life, although they may seem coincidental to some, are true moments of grace, gifts from the universe not to be ignored. A month ago, at Hope University at an Amnesty International Conference concerning women’s rights I met a professor, Dr. Mutanga. While chatting, I learned he runs a foundation in Kenya. We arrived at the topic of malaria during the course of the conversation and I mentioned Mbita and the survey results. From this encounter he connected me with a woman named Vickie Winkler, from the organization HEART, who runs a project in Kenya called WEEP. WEEP is an acronym for the Women Equality Empowerment Project. Coincidentally, the WEEP project is in its initial stages as it began only a few months ago. The WEEP project currently consists of HIV positive women, who are widows because their husbands have died of AIDS. These newly widowed women are desperately trying to support their families, most having four to five children at home. They are now employed by WEEP and several times a week work to make malaria bed nets for HEART, providing needed income for themselves and their families.

So, with that solved how to get the nets from Nairobi to Mbita and distribute them? For this significant, logistical portion of the plan Alka Subramanian and the Power of Love volunteered their services. Power of Love currently sends funds to the Akado clinic, and kindly offered to transport the nets from Nairobi to Mbita. Alka also suggested holding a health clinic day organized by the women of the Akado Medical Center to educate the recipients about malaria prevention and hand out the nets. The nets will be distributed to grandmothers raising their orphaned grandchildren and pregnant mothers with children under 5 years of age. A portion of the day will be a focused discussion on ways to prevent malaria transmission. Malaria is as serious a killer in Africa as HIV/AIDS. Both are pandemic problems that need and deserve the rest of the world’s attention and aid. In Mbita malaria is the number one cause of death.
The wonderful thing about this project is that it has a two fold benefit. It both provides income for widows who have lost their husbands to AIDS and also provides bed nets for children in Mbita to prevent malaria infection.

Funds
Currently an order for ninety two nets has been made. These were paid from by funds left over from a collection for Africa, made by the South African travelers this last year and a few other donors. Each net costs eight U.S. dollars. These nets will be picked up in the near future and brought to Mbita. Although, this may seem like a small number I have been told it is not, and that it will be very helpful to the community. With this in mind, how wonderful it would be to provide even more nets on a regular basis.

Future of this Project
I find it another wonderful coincidence that an arrangement of the names of the organizations involved form such an inspiring message — Be the Cause, through Heart, Hope and the Power of Love.
My hope, and my belief, is that we can continue this project on a regular basis, buying, transporting and distributing these nets to Mbita. If anyone would like to make donations or if you have additional ideas on how to raise additional funds please contact me, stacey@bethecause.org or visit our website at http://www.bethecause.org.

Malaria Facts
700,000 children die in Africa each year from Malaria. The World Health Organization (WHO) has said for years the incidence of death could be greatly reduced if children under 5 slept under treated bed nets. Malaria season is in full swing by June.

“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.”
– Native American Saying