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Personal Stories
Security Guard by Day, Health Worker in Training and Practice – Jane’s Story
Many unsung heroes are making a difference in their community, particularly during the era of the COVID-19 pandemic. Twenty-six-year-old Jane Njeri Kagwiria Kubai is one such individual. She wears many hats; she is a security guard, a frontline health worker, a student and a mother based in Nyeri County. She works hard as a security guard so at to fulfil her dreams of being a health worker. A single mother of a six-year-old boy (her greatest inspiration) Jane is an early bird, waking up at 3 AM every day to catch the worm. Growing up in a humble family setting, Jane navigated life with v
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Personal Stories
Choosing between buying food or mask: Margaret Story
It is difficult to live in one of the largest slums in Africa. It is even tougher to live with an existing Coronavirus pandemic in an informal settlement. On March 13, the Government confirmed the first case of Coronavirus in Kenya, which was a turning point for many families. Margaret Achuongo, a 26-year-old mother of four and a resident of Soweto in Kibera slum in Kenya has seen the firsthand effects of living while protecting themselves from getting the highly contagious disease. Since the Coronavirus pandemic, Margaret and her family have had to drastically adjust their lives. As a small
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Blog
Community Health Workers Champion Kenya’s COVID-19 Response
Communities and community health workers matter and play a key role in responding to major disease outbreaks as demonstrated in the Ebola outbreak in West and Central Africa. Community health workers provide essential community health services such as increasing access to health products and services, providing health education and reducing the burden on the formal health care system by managing non-complicated illnesses such as Malaria. They identify presumptive cases, trace contacts and link them to health facilities for further management. As countries set up and implement national re
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Personal Stories
Grace Nabenga Lufu 31, Enrolled Nurse, Kakora Dispensary
“As medical practitioners, we are supposed to wash our hands with soap before and after handling the expectant mother, this was very difficult those days when there was no water. We were using buckets and it required another person to help you pour water while washing your hands; we did not have good handwashing facilities. Today, everything is easy, I just open the tap and water flows. We have a big water tank reservoir, so we have water all the time. I am excited about all these improvements in our dispensary. Sanitation and hygiene conditions have greatly improved. We have a new incine
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Personal Stories
Perepetua Emmanuel, 28, Village Health Worker
“My name is Perepetua Emmanuel. I’m 28 years old, a mother of two boys and two girls. I trained as a Village Health Worker; this is voluntary work but I am very happy to see my people in the village improve their sanitation and hygiene conditions as well as seeking health centre services when pregnant instead of going to traditional birth attendants. After my training as a Village Health Worker, I requested our village (Nyamalimbe) chairman for permission to go house-to-house teaching people about good sanitation and hygiene practices. The village Executive Committee also allowed me to
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Blog
Thanks to the leadership of communities, more than 17,000 girls in Kenya and Tanzania have gone through Alternative Rites of Passage without the cut. And, they continue with education.
It began in the middle of the night - twenty years ago, in Kimana, the Maasai village in Kenya where I was born. The village where my parents died and I was raised by my grandfather. He is in elder in our community - a very respected man. His name is Ole Sing’aru. But that night my sister Soila and I ran away from him. We snuck out of our house and climbed a tree to hide ourselves. Why? Because we feared an age-old ritual called ‘the cut’. For centuries, ‘the cut’ had been part of our community. It means that girls are undergoing female genital mutilation or cutting at age 8, 9
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News
Unpacking the journey to self reliance (J2SR)
“As we listen to some of the most thoughtful voices around the world, over and over again we hear the need to be independent, the need to be self-reliant. That’s the spirit that has led USAID to craft a framework we call the Journey to self-reliance” Mark Green Under the leadership of Administrator Mark Green, the United States Agency of International Development embarked on the journey to self-reliance (J2SR) with the aim of ending the need for foreign assistance and fostering self-reliant communities. The self - reliance theory of change is anchored on two mutual factors
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