AIDS Barefoot Doctors
Through SOTENI’s innovative and effective “AIDS Barefoot Doctors” program, AIDS orphans can become leaders in the fight against the disease.
In early 2006, the first cadres of AIDS Barefoot Doctors (ABDs) began providing home-based care, support, and disease-prevention messages to persons living with HIV/AIDS and members of their households in SVH-Mituntu and SVH-Mbakalo. Currently 25 ABDs have been trained and made more than 400 home visits.
To become ABDs, trainees receive education in first aid, elementary primary care, household hygiene, community public health, HIV prevention, referrals to local health-care providers, programmatic reporting, and business practices. The trainees include orphans and persons living with HIV/AIDS.
The ABDs are intended to be self-sustaining, their income deriving from a combination of money from local and international grants, fees for service, and the sale of commodities such as vitamins and anti-malarial bed nets for the prevention of mosquito bites.
In SOTENI’s guiding principles, the “E” in SOTENI stands for Epidemiology, the science of prevention. Prevention is more cost-effective than treatment. Additionally, prevention and treatment help each other in stopping the AIDS pandemic. All of SOTENI’s activities – from promotion of safe sexual behavior to vocational training for jobs that can replace sex work – directly or indirectly prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS. As ABDs, and leaders in the community, the orphans themselves become partners in preventing their own generation from succumbing to the disease.
In April of 2008 SOTENI International received a grant from the MAC Global Foundation to restart the ABD Program in SVH-Mituntu and SVH-Mbakalo. The funding covers 6 ABDs for each SVH for one year. Nine of the original 24 were retrained and three new ABDs were recruited and trained. Home visits started in July 2008 and will continue through May 2009.
After a successful start for the ABDs, SOTENI is seeking resources to expand the program to all four Villages of Hope.
photo: (l to r) George Ngaruiya, Project Manager for the MAC/ABD project,
Randie Marsh, SOTENI International Director and
Edward Wanyonyi, Kenya Programme Manager
