Global Fund Signs Agreements Worth US$ 2.8 Million with Kenya NOGs to Fund HIV Programs
28 March 2003
Geneva, Switzerland – At the end of 2001, Kenya had an estimated 2.5 million adults and children infected with HIV, and an estimated 890,000 orphans who had lost one or both parents to the disease. Today, the Global Fund signed grant agreements with two remarkable Kenyan NGOs who are committed to turning the tide of the pandemic: KENWA and Sanaa Art Promotions.
For KENWA, the Kenya Network for Women with AIDS, the US$221,000 two-year Global Fund grant will stretch far. Started in 1993 by five HIV positive Kenyan women, the grassroots self-help community organization is currently reaching about 470,000 people through a country-wide membership of 2,430 women living with the disease. The organization, whose motto is “We repair broken hearts” is staffed entirely by volunteers and has 704 orphans in its care. Its main mission is to improve the quality of life for women living with HIV/AIDS and that of their affected children. “Most of the women are poor and cannot even afford drinking water, let alone food and drugs,” says Asunta Wagura, KENWA’s Executive Director and co-founder.
The program’s specific objectives include training for advocacy, production of educational materials and the establishment of three new drop-in centres at Thika, Mathare and Kikuyu. The existing three KENWA centres in Nairobi’s slum areas of Pangani, Soweto and Korogocho are overburdened and too far for many members to make the journey, either because they are too sick or cannot afford the bus journey.
Sanaa Art Promotions was established in 1985 and uses art, both visual and performing to promote social development within East African communities. SAP now works with a network of over 300 community youth groups throughout Kenya. Adolescents and youth constitute more than 50 per cent of the population of Kenya, and Sanaa Art Promotions designs and implements innovative, participatory intervention programs that specifically targets this audience. The US$2.6 million SAP proposal expands on their ongoing programs in schools in Nairobi, Central, Eastern and Coast Province and will train approximately 9,375 peer educators to work with teachers and in- and out-of-school youth.
These signings bring the Global Fund’s signed grant agreements to date to nearly US$395 million over the first two years of 49 different agreements in 27 countries.