IPD Camp HIV/AIDS Seminar

Through talking to a few people in my first few days in the camp, I became aware of the prevalence of HIV and AIDS within the small community. One of the health workers who is also an IDP from the camp through some basic survey work estimated the infection rate at as high as 42% among the camp adults, she also said there were several young girls who’d been raped during the violence who’d also been infected. Building upon my previous months experience working with the Tumaini HIV/AIDS Project in the Lenana slum area of Nairobi, and my beliefs that education is the key I decided to hold an HIV seminar in camp.

Working with Hope For Life, a local NGO I arranged to have testing conducted on the day, so after people had learned about the risks and treatment etc, they would be compelled to get tested, especially if it’s right there. When I was in Nairobi for the Eat So They Can video conference I met with the Tumaini group and discussed bringing one of them to the camp, to share their story during the seminar in camp. Rose the strongest speaker and Sophia the program leader were to come up early the morning of the event. I also brought the education materials, posters and handouts we’d created for the Tumaini seminar in Nairobi to use during the day.

The seminar, like other similar events was to be hosted under a large tree in a field nearby the camp. Mr John, the health committee chairman went around reminding people of the event, and slowly they began to wander over. I put up posters along a barbed wire fence near the tree. Hope for life sent out a testing professional who came from the Molo district hospital, which is the area many of the camps 4000+ residents were displaced from, his name was Joseph and he agreed to talk about the testing portion of the program before setting up to begin his work in the clinic. Once the Tumaini ladies had arrived from Nairobi, we began.

Mr John welcomed us and all those in the audience before we introduced ourselves and one of the women from the audience lead the group in a prayer. I then spoke to the ever expanding audience as John translated what I said. Speaking through a translator is a strange experience and takes some getting used to, I was constantly concerned about getting my message out, without it being too long for John to remember it all and convey the same message in Swahili for the audience. The group sat very divided, with women on my left and a slightly smaller group of men sitting on my right, gradually each side grew as more and more people came to listen.

I covered all the major topics we’d discussed in the previous seminar: HIV in Kenya, which talks a lot about the statistics, and about the stigma and some HIV Myths which are common here. What is HIV and How it Spreads, I discussed what HIV stands for, that it is the virus that causes AIDS and how it is and isn’t transmitted, and talking about the concurrency issue in Africa, where many people have more than one regular sexual partner, and how it greatly increases the rate of transmission. Testing and Treatment, explaining that testing is a simple, quick and free service in Kenya, and that you need to be bested every 3 months to constantly know your status, and what the treatment options are and how with ARVs provided free by the Kenyan government, many people live long and healthy lives. Then Prevention which is really the key, how condoms are the safest way to protest themselves and their partners and re-iterating the concurrency theme by showing a series of diagrams.

Before inviting Rose, the star of the show to speak, Joseph spoke more about the testing and how it’s so important to know your status and make educated decisions about how to act. When Rose got up to speak she immediately stole the show, speaking in the native tongue, she was able to capture the attention of the group with ease, sharing her story. How seventeen years earlier, her and her husband found out they were both HIV positive, the husband killed himself shortly after, leaving Rose alone to raise the children. She lived for twelve years without any ARV treatment, now with the daily pills she is strong and healthy although without work and living in a slum, Rose’s own children are grown up but she looks after two little girls who were orphaned when their mother and father both diet of AIDS related illness two years ago. Now as part of the Tumaini group in Nairobi, she encourages others to get tested and know their status, welcoming them into the group if they need it. Although Rose spoke in Swahili and most of it I didn’t understand, judging from the way she engaged the audience and even invoked laughter, I’m sure they enjoyed the talk, and hope the message was heard.

Once the seminar was over, we headed over to the clinic where Joseph was waiting with the testing kits. I decided to practice what I preach and lead by example being the first to get tested. When I’d previously been tested throughout my adult life, it had always been done in a lab, as part of a series of other tests so I was interested to see how the instant testing worked. Joseph pricked the end of my finger with a clean disposable spike, similar to a blood sugar test he squeezed the deep red blood from the tip, wiping away to make sure it was clean, then sucked it into a small tube. He then placed drops of blood on each of the two tests he was using on the day, then adding drops of a special solution to activate the test. The tests would then produce a line in two sections, one to show that the test worked and one to show the result. The testing process including results took less than ten minutes. As I left the clinic, there was already a line of people waiting to know their status. At the end of the day 52 of the about 90 attendees was tested, only one of them was positive, and they already knew. It doesn’t really fit with the Kenyan estimated averages, or the suggestions I’d heard coming into the camp, but that’s 52 more people who know their status, and can make an educated decision about how they act.