15th September, 2011
AMREF’s brave foot soldiers
Thirty-nine year old Josephine is a single mother of seven children. She left her matrimonial home to escape the constant abuse from her husband.
As if that’s not all, Josephine tested positive for HIV two years ago. Though not on ARV drugs Josephine is healthy and was selected to be a Community Health Worker (CHW) for AMREF’S Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) project in Kitanga location Machakos District.
Having overcome the stigma of disclosing her HIV status she states unashamedly, “I have never been sick and only got to know my status during a routine testing at a VCT. Now I am ready to take my last born for testing.’ she adds.
Leaving six of her children in the care of a neighbour and the last born strapped onto her back, she walks the hills and valleys and meandering paths to carry out door to door out reach in her designated households in the afternoons.
Community health workers provide a vital link in empowering communities to take control of improving their own health.
Josephine is one out of 300,000 CHWs in Kenya who volunteer their time to serve the community
under the Kenya Essential Package of Health (KEPH). In general, CHWs are not paid salaries because the Ministry of Health or donors do not consider salaries to be sustainable. Yet CHWs are often held accountable and supervised as if they were employees.
AMREF is implementing a PMTCT project in Machakos District in conjunction with the Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation targeting pregnant women for HIV counselling and testing. Under this project, AMREF also builds the capacity of CHWs by administering a three phase training based on a curriculum developed by the government.
Josephine has completed the first phase. “I have been trained in communication and counselling skills, basic diagnosis, simple management of diarroheal diseases and family planning.” She says, adding that she also talks to people about about HIV and AIDS, and the importance of testing.
Josephine and hundreds of others like herself are an invaluable asset to AMREF's work across Kenya.
Find out more about AMREF's work across Kenya