 |
Search : | ||
|
|||
News
|
News stories
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
20 July 2001 By Denis McClean in Nairobi As many as 700 people die every day in Kenya from AIDS. The daily newspapers carry several pages of obituaries. Many of the deceased have died following "a long illness", a euphemism for AIDS. This week Paul Tito Omukuba's death notice appeared in The Nation newspaper with the Aids ribbon attached - the first-ever such announcement in a Kenyan newspaper. By going public, his family was respecting the young man's wishes and taking a giant step towards removing the stigma associated with People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) in Kenya. "We fulfilled Paul's wish to warn people," said his sister Margaret Muigai, who, together with most mourners at the funeral mass, wore the red ribbon. "We didn't hide behind euphemisms which society has demanded up 'till now - and already I have received many calls from people wanting to share their suffering." Paul is not the first person in Kenya to have gone public about his illness in a bid to encourage behavioural changes among young Kenyans and to raise the issue of respect and human rights for PLWHA. Just two weeks ago, there was a sad farewell paid to Frederick Odhiambo, a courageous 38-year-old man, who died after establishing a support group for PLWHA in western Nyanza province, the epicentre of the epidemic in Kenya. He left behind his grieving parents Mr and Mrs. Nyahori and Felin Odhiambo, his two young daughters Margaret and Mary, but also a small but vibrant group of men and women in the People Living with Aids in Kenya (PLAK) group which he founded at the end of 2000. The group today comprises ten women and 13 men. "I met Frederick for the first time in 1998. He did not show yet the signs of the illness but he volunteered to take the test after a meeting with the Chiefs in the area and to encourage others to face up to the epidemic He wanted to create awareness. He tested positive. He left for Mombasa but returned and set up the PLAK group," said Jacqueline Naulikha, Kenyan Red Cross HIV/AIDS field officer in Nyanza Province. Frederick's mantle of leadership in this rural community is now taken on by John Osir Apiyo who was a policeman for 18 years before he tested positive. "I inherited the wife of a brother who died of the disease because that is the custom. Now even my wife is sick and the young baby is sick and the wife I inherited is sick," he says. John admits that when the AIDS was first talked about in the community people thought it was a joke or an effort to destroy traditions such as wife inheritance. The AIDS epidemic has devastated western Kenya with infection rates as high as 30%, partly because of cultural traditions which attach great ritual importance to sexual intercourse as a necessary prelude to important life-events such as tilling the soil, harvesting crops or burying the dead. Men have also tried to cleanse themselves of the illness through having sex with children, with devastating results. Patrick Couteau, a veteran of the struggle against HIV/AIDS, has been appointed regional HIV/AIDS co-ordinator for the International Federation in East Africa and joined Jacqueline in a recent dialogue with the PLAK group meeting in Central Kolwa outside Kisumu. He praised the group for "breaking the silence. The first benefit is that we are all together and sharing your experiences. You were lonely, isolated, putting all the shame on yourselves individually. You will save many lives by the effort that you are making together." Jacqueline maintains that the Family Health Home-Based Care Programme of the Kenyan Red Cross, which has been running for five years, is making progress on a number of fronts. A nurse and social worker herself, Jacqueline emmphasises that Home-Based Care should not be looked on as " a dumping place for people. People will die faster if they do not get nutritional support and medication. These aspects have to be addressed. We are providing this type of support to about 600 people every month." She observes that the AIDS epidemic has thrown coping mechanisms into turmoil. "In the African set-up there's always capacity in the event of a flood or a fire. Now with HIV/AIDS people are using all the resources they have and they leave the orphans with nothing. Coping mechanisms are completely overstretched." The Red Cross experience in Nyanza is that condom use is on the increase and that cultural practices are changing with an increasing number of widows now refusing to be inherited. "The sheer number of people dying of HIV/AIDS means that people have realised that it is real and with us. The most tragic aspect for me is the sexual abuse of minors in the belief that the men are going to be cleansed from the virus," says Jacqueline. A crucial part of Kenya Red Cross strategy in Nyanza province is to raise awareness among schoolchildren of the potential threats to their health and to encourage to speak out if they are being subjected to threats or being abused. Where Jacqueline would like to see much more being done is in support and care for orphans who number 2,000 in the Central Kalwo area out of a total population of 25,000 people. Many of these children end up on the street and are in danger of getting involved in commercial sex given the grinding poverty that affects the region. Kenyan Red Cross believes that AIDS is uniquely threatening to children and that support must be provided at community level to ensure that orphaned children can stay in the community with extended families and that food and other support can be provided. Kenyan Red Cross Secretary General, Abbas Gullet, says that home-based care and HIV/AIDS counselling for individuals and families is an important part of the National Society's strategy to provide moral, social and psychological to PLWHA and their families. In keeping with the Federation's overall strategy to scale up dramatically its efforts to turn back the tide of the epidemic, the Kenyan Red Cross plans to expand the project in Kisumu to neighbouring areas and to start similar projects in other parts of the country beginning with Nakuru and Mombasa. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
