I Am Not Quite So Tired Now...
Greetings from Kenya. The rains have come… the hillsides are green again, but it will be some time before we see food plentiful in Kenya. Hunger is a daily reality for so many … but we live in HOPE for a better tomorrow!I arrived home today from London. I had the rare opportunity to meet with the Elton John AIDS Foundation (EJAF). This was given to me by a dear friend, Warren Buckingham. He is over President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) in Kenya. He paved the way for this meeting. I met with Mohamed who is over the EJAF Grants. La Quita Baker was with me and helped me navigate the “underground” also the trains … plus some walking. We reached our destination in time for our appointment.
Mohamed is a sharp, young Kenyan man – very kind and friendly, but told me they do not usually meet this way with possible grant recipients. He tried to put me at ease and asked me to close my portfolio and to just share my “passion” with him … an hour later he said they would be interested in our Women Equality Empowerment Project (WEEP ) and Parent Rescue Orphan Prevention Strategy (PROPS) projects. He explained the process to me and how to proceed in applying for the grants. As I left his office I thought, for someone with such power and authority he dealt with me in such a gracious yet professional manner ... he represents EJAF well. Please allow me to also ask for payer for Elton John. He is right now in the hospital in England and has had to cancel several performances, we prayed for him today as a staff.
I met with our whole HEART staff today to share about my trip to London. We stayed with Rotary friends “Ernie and Stella Russell”. They did not know us, but because I am in the Rotary family they opened their home to us. It was like being at a delightful English Bed and Breakfast! I found there are many open doors for me to return to England and share about “Freedom for Girls” and other HEART projects.
To proceed with EJAF would mean a huge scale-up of services of both these projects (WEEP/PROPS). We prayed as a team about this door that has opened up for us, and what HEART will look like in five years if we walk through it. HEART has always taken the stand to search for funding to fulfill our vision and not to follow the funds, but have the funds follow us. Several staff shared today … questions and thoughts and various input.
Both Isaac and Evans who work in the “Kids for School” project shared how they are often asked for help to start a project upcountry for women that have AIDS.
HEART is unique in that while we work in the seven districts of Kenya at the grassroots level, we work with a variety of Community Based Organizations (CBO’s) not just HEART recipients. Many are looking to us to help them fund something for the infected women in their areas. Many women and children are suffering from HIV. We have often talked of taking WEEP upcountry … is this the time?
This evening I feel extremely tired and vulnerable … searching for the funds to do our work is extremely exhausting …
It is Tuesday night and we are to leave on Thursday to head upcountry for a HEART Health Seminar and Mobile Voluntary Counseling and Testing (MVCT). It is a seven hour journey by road (I may try to fly). Bob Francabandera and Abel Oyaro have helped pull all the logistics together and all is set for the safari. There will be 14 people and all our supplies piling into the bus on Thursday morning.
So tonight after dinner (it is cold here tonight) I climbed into bed at 8 PM (an almost never occurrence) I put on my music and with my lap top on top of the covers I checked my e-mails …..I have 303 unread messages. One from Bev in the CO office was on top so I started there … she was forwarding an e-mail from someone who visited Kenya in May. She stayed here at HEART and wrote about our Kibera WEEP Center.
I want to share with you what she wrote. I hope it makes you cry as it did me … this is what it is all about … I don’t feel quite so tired now … I will continue the search for funds, we will continue to help the children, we will continue to see women come from death to life ….
By Melissa Mendonca October 30, 2009
She was 17 when she walked into the WEEP Center with her two small children. Two weeks later, when I was visiting, they said she was looking so much better.
Better, I thought? The rail-thin girl with the haunted eyes and slow movements? The girl who is watching everything but barely reacting?
She was almost dead when she got here, they said. The other women looked like her when they arrived, but look at them now.
The women dancing and clapping and praising God and pulling me into the circle with mischievous smiles? They used to look like her?
Welcome to WEEP, Women Empowerment Equality Program. Such strong words to make a sad acronym. In reality, the opposite is true. At WEEP, sadness becomes strength.
My day-long visit to the WEEP Center in the Kibera slums of Nairobi was my first opportunity to contemplate the concept of orphan prevention. How do you prevent a child from becoming an orphan? You keep her mother alive. With HIV/AIDS, that means Anti-Retroviral Therapy. At WEEP, mothers are given access to ART and then skills to make life bearable.
A plan is laid out at WEEP and it seems to be working: get women on ART, give them time to gain strength and start skills training that raises their ability to support themselves while at the same time builds self-esteem and self-worth. Their children are put in a center preschool throughout the process and nutrition is provided to all through compact container gardening done right on site.
Perhaps as important as the plan is the camaraderie and companionship the women provided each other. Women who were strengthened and restored held and comforted the young woman’s baby. They soothed her cries, burped her gas and tossed her in the air to make her giggle. When the baby was calm and easy to handle, they would gently hand her back to her momma. While the baby shares her mom’s HIV status, she does not share her mom’s frame. This baby is chunky and plump and heavy.
I took my turn with the baby, holding her for an hour while she slept. I’m not a person to rush in and hold babies. I really start to like kids when they turn about 4. But this one… this girl, I didn’t want to let go. I cuddled and kissed and whispered words of strength. I swallowed my pride and prayed. I conjured every bit of life force in my own being to transfer on to this beautiful child and I held her close as if the contact with my body could strengthen her own.
When the child awoke, I handed her back to her mother. When I went home, I wept.
Thank you for listening tonight to my journey with HEART. Thank you for your prayers, support and much needed love and encouragement.
Vickie
HEART Founder/Executive Director
