Current Projects
HEAL currently supports two organizations and several individuals. While we can't tell the personal story of each individual we assist, below is a brief description of our work.
The Shinners Women support widows and children affected by HIV. The widows reside in Abunga, the worst slum in Kisumu. The women have lost their husbands to the AIDS epidemic, and some of them are HIV-infected themselves. All are supporting children - some as many as 30 children in one small mud hut. The women are assisted by Shinners through periodic food supplementation and small grants to help them start small businesses, such as a hair salon, or a kiosk to sell vegetables, or a small stove to cook and sell chapatis. The Shinners Woemn also offer day care for the small preschool children to allow the widows to run their small business. The children are provided a nutritious lunch. HEAL has donated funds for food, for small grants to the widows, and for school fees for a few of the older children who cannot afford to go to secondary school. One such young boy, Victor, despite growing up in abject poverty with no access to books or any of the advantages of some of the elite in Kenya, scored third in the country on the national entrance exam. He needs assistance with school fees, as do many other deserving young men and women from Abunga.
The other organization we support is the Kisumu Initiative for Positive Empowerment (KIPE). KIPE began in 2002 and has been providing counseling and medical services for young people living in Kisumu who are either infected with or are affected by HIV/AIDS. They currently have over 700 members to whom they offer medical treatment for opportunistic infections in addition to individual and group counseling services. They also are involved in education campaigns in the local community aimed at preventing HIV transmission. They would like to expand their projects to include a non-site agricultural program in which food produced would supplement the nutrition of the members and provide some small income. Many of the members are on anti-retroviral treatment for AIDS and they need food in order to take their medications. Many of the KIPE members were severely affected by the recent political violence in Kenya and they have lost the small sources of income that some had. We aim to provide small grants to some to assist them in rebuilding their small businesses (e.g., bicycle transporter, barber, shoe repair, sell goat milk, etc).
In addition to these organizations, several individuals or families have been identified as in need of monetary assistance for educational, nutritional, or medical treatment purposes. Depending on our level of funding, we hope to support several of these individuals and families by providing school fees, investment in food-security, and medical treatment that these individuals would otherwise not be able to afford.