Crisis in Kenya
Photo by Gillian Mathurin
Kofi Annan has recently brokered a deal between Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga, and the Kenyan people are cautiously optimistic that things will settle down. However, the needs of adults and children living with HIV and AIDS remain pressing. Some 500,000 persons have been displaced across the country – the majority of whom are women and children – and people infected and affected by HIV and AIDS continue to face hardship. Although the Stephen Lewis Foundation is not an emergency relief organization, when the safety and continuity of services of our project partners is threatened, we are committed to responding as quickly as possible to meet their needs.
SLF is funding 32 grassroots projects in Kenya and we are in regular contact, via phone and email, with project staff on the ground. In response to the continuing impact of violence and civil unrest on the community-level organizations we support, SLF has distributed more than $150,000 in additional funds to six projects, with more emergency funding applications coming in – and more money going out – every day.
Over the past few months, we have heard from our Kenyan partners that people have been forced to flee their homes, women and children have been raped, people have had difficulty securing safe transportation, and food and other necessities have become scarce or completely unavailable. One SLF funded project reported that of the 986 people displaced in their immediate surroundings, 398 were women and 322 were children. Yet another project saw the daily intake of food among 1,090 local granny-headed households drop to one meagre meal a day, with over 400 households at risk of starvation.
“It is so incredible how our Kenyan colleagues are pushing past their own fear and uncertainty to lead organizations – to lead communities – through this intensely difficult time and salve the wounds of those in need.”
— Leah Teklemariam, SLF Programme Officer
The effects of the instability on the sick and vulnerable are wide-ranging, long-lasting and can be life-threatening. People living with HIV and AIDS need nutritious food in order to tolerate their antiretroviral drugs. When people cannot access food, their immune systems become compromised and they are at increased risk of opportunistic infections.
When transportation becomes too expensive or too dangerous, project staff cannot get to work and home-based care visits have to be cancelled, leaving the people who depend on these lifelines of support further isolated and without treatment. When goods from income generating projects – such as crops and livestock – are burnt, looted, cannot be tended to or cannot be sold, caregivers are robbed of their scarce financial resources. When rates of violence rise, rape is often used as a weapon against women and children, putting them at increased risk of HIV infection. |
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SLF is deeply committed to protecting the safety and continuity of the projects we fund.We do not work on a fixed funding schedule, which gives us considerable flexibility to respond to the unforeseen and sometimes urgent needs of our partners in Africa. With the funds distributed by SLF since the unrest broke out, our Kenyan partners are:
- Providing trauma and rape counselling for women who have suffered violence and loss or witnessed brutality
- providing food and nutritional supplements to the weak and vulnerable so that they can stay healthy and maintain ARV drug regimes
- driving people to nearby health care facilities where they can seek treatment and continue medications
- providing temporary shelter to the displaced
- relocating students to safer schools
- supplementing income-generating projects that have lost their stock or been unable to take it to market
- providing soap, sanitary towels, clothes and mosquito nets to women who have been displaced or who can’t afford these basic essentials at the inflated prices resulting from the conflict
- replacing office supplies – and even offices – destroyed by looting and fire.
For more information on some of the SLF-funded projects in Kenya, visit the What We Do section of our website.
RELATED READING
- Daily Nation Online (Kenyan newspaper)
- The Standard (Kenyan newspaper)
- Kenya in crisis - BBC Online
- In depth: Kenya’s post-election crisis - IRIN
- Countries & Emergencies: Kenya - ReliefWeb
donate to projects in kenya
If you would like to donate to grassroots projects in Kenya funded by the Stephen Lewis Foundation, you may do so online through Canada Helps (type ‘Kenya’ in the message box), by cheque, money order or over the phone (specify ‘Kenya’ in the memo line or to the SLF staff member who takes your call). You may contact us at:
Stephen Lewis Foundation
260 Spadina Ave., Suite 501
Toronto, ON
M5T 2E4
(Tel): 416-533-9292 ext.0
(Toll free): 1-888-203-9990
ABout the STEPHEN LEWIS FOUNDATION
The Stephen Lewis Foundation (SLF) helps to ease the pain of HIV/AIDS in Africa by funding community-level projects that provide care and support to women, orphans, grandmothers and associations of people living with HIV and AIDS. Since 2003, the Stephen Lewis Foundation has distributed and committed more than $20 million to over 270 community-level initiatives in 15 sub-Saharan African countries. Learn more about What We Do.