Kenya Partner Profiles
Springs Ministries
NCCK Integrated Reproductive Health Program for Refugees
SPRINGS MINISTRIES
Margaret Auma, the director of Springs Ministries, was able to attend the 16th International AIDS Conference in Toronto in August 2006. At the conference and the ecumenical pre-conference she was able to share with many people working in similar ways to combat HIV and learn from the numerous presentations. One realization she had at the Conference was that grandmothers are a distinct group with their own needs and abilities. She vowed to return to Kenya to work with grandmothers so as to strengthen them in their mutual work against HIV and AIDS.
Springs Ministries
Activities include: education and awareness raising about HIV; income generation; moral support; vocational training with widows; orphans; and night watchmen.
Project summary
All Springs Ministries work involves education and awareness-raising about HIV and AIDS: how to prevent it and how to care for people who are HIV- positive. Springs Ministries organizes groups of widows who meet together for mutual support and to help each other in communal tasks such as repairing/rebuilding their houses and cultivating their fields. These widows reach out to orphans in the community: giving them a home, providing school fees and school uniforms.
Springs Ministries runs vocational training in tailoring for orphans. It also sponsors several orphans to attend classes in vocational training such as metal work and carpentry. The work with night watchmen involves friendship and morale building. Night watchmen are usually poorly educated and badly treated which causes low morale and low morale often causes high risk behaviour.
What difference does PWRDF partnership make?
Support from PWRDF has allowed Springs Ministries the stability they need to make their programs effective and expand their program and include projects that raise funds for the organization to make it self-sustaining.
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Source: CIA Factbook
National Council of Churches of Kenya
Project: Integrated Reproductive Health Program, Kakuma refugee camp in northwestern Kenya and Dadaab refugee camp in northeastern Kenya
Activities include: family planning workshops; leadership training for community leaders on reproductive health and sexuality; counseling and clinic referral services; HIV AIDS support groups, training on anti-violence and gender discrimination and strengthening “circle of friends” support groups against female genital mutilation (FGM) and other harmful traditional practices.
Project summaryIn 1994, the National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK) began an integrated Reproductive Health (RH) Services project for refugees in Kenya. Over the years, the project has received support from church partners such as PWRDF, as well as UNHCR and other UN bodies.
The goal of the program is to strengthen awareness of STD/HIV/AIDS among the 122,000 refugees in Kakuma camp and the local Kenyan community living in the camp’s vicinity.
The program works to:
- Support and strengthen continuous integration of Reproductive Health (RH) services to refugees;
- Create reproductive health awareness among youth, adolescents, men and women of child bearing age;
- Strengthen advocacy and support groups for reproductive health awareness campaigns;
- Mobilize refugees and agency workers to mark World AIDS Day;
- and Promote safe motherhood initiatives.
PWRDF has been in partnership with NCCK for more than 10 years, since 1994.
2004 Staff Trip Report Excerpt
“We accompanied Becky Achiro, another NCCK Reproductive Health Promoter and herself a refugee from Sudan, as she paid a home visit to 34-year-old Joskar Achan, a refugee from Sudan. Becky visits Joskar regularly for a one to one talk on RH as a high-risk case for STDs including HIV and AIDS. Joskar is a commercial sex worker. She lives with her 17-year-old nephew who arrived after her. She said members of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) raped her as she fled Sudan to escape fighting in her village. She lost her husband as a result of the rape and the infertility that followed. She has had surgery recently to deal with pain and suffering from the rape. Joskar said her “customers” constantly beat her with some refusing to pay for her services. She showed us a recent burn on her hand inflicted by one customer.
Sudanese tradition forbids the sharing of a hut with a man. And so, she sleeps outside at night and uses the hut for “ sexual services” during the day while her nephew is at school. Becky supplies her with condoms but the men refuse to use them and so she is forced to have unprotected sex. Joskar refuses to get tested for HIV, as she sees no use in knowing her status. The NCCK staff fear she is already HIV positive. She is sick most of the time. When asked why she has turned to the sex trade, she showed us the food rations from the WFP to make her point saying that the food was inadequate.
Joskar is in the sex trade because, that is the only way she can make money to buy more food and other essentials like clothing. She has embroidery skills and has used that to supplement her income. She believes she would be able to get out of the sex trade if she received grants to buy her own materials (cloth, thread, etc.,) and sell her embroidery. She gets paid 200 Shillings (about $ 4) for her embroidery with the customer bringing in their own materials. She could make 3,000 Shillings if she supplied the material herself. It takes her a month to finish one embroidery, usually for a tablecloth or bedspread. This is because she is ill most of the time and cannot work as much as she would like to.
The NCCK provides regular counseling and the raw materials she needs to do embroidery that she then sells to earn income. This is gradually helping her move out of the commercial sex trade.”
