Global Health Action


Profiles of those we serve Meeting the Needs of OVCs in Kenya Combating AIDS Close to Home Sujatha de Magry: Tamil Nadu, India LEAP Program: DeKalb County, Georgia Mimose Pierre’s Story: La Colline, Haiti
Meeting the Needs of OVCs in Kenya (March 2009) Bakary Sidibe, GHA's Program Manager for Africa, and Alfred Abande Oloo, GHA's Kenyan Field Office Coordinator recently held a series of meetings in Nairobi with the leaders of three Kenyan organizations - Humanity for Orphans, Youth and Widows Initiatives Kenya (HOYWIK); Mother's Delight Moments (MDM); and Kibera Community Self Help Program (KICOSHEP). Staff from all three Kenyan non-profit organizations have attended GHA courses in the Design, Management, and Evaluation (DM&E) of
		Estimates of the population of Nairobi’s Kibera Slums range from 600,000 to more than a million
HIV/AIDS Programs, and the first two are seed grant recipients. We know them well. The three organizations work in Nairobi's Kibera Slums and focus on the needs of what public health people refer to as "OVCs," i.e., children left orphaned by AIDS and those who are vulnerable because of the disease. Together, we are developing a project based on collaboration and mentorship, combining organizational capacity building, technical assistance, and direct services to OVCs. Kenya's National AIDS Control Council (NACC) is highly interested in seeing how this approach can fit with their goal of reaching OVCs in underserved rural areas. (Top)
Combating AIDS Close to Home (March 2009) Global Health Action is headquartered in DeKalb County, Georgia, a state with one of the highest number of reported AIDS cases in the U.S. GHA's school-based AIDS Awareness and Prevention Program seeks to educate, raise awareness, and focus attention on the AIDS epidemic. Since 2004, we have partnered with DeKalb County Schools to educate young people about HIV/AIDS issues, using peer-to-peer presentations and in-school programs to reach tens of thousands of middle and high school students. In 2008, we distributed information packets to counselors at more that 20 DeKalb County schools.Thirteen of them - seven high schools and six
		Katelyn, a peer leader at Champion Theme Middle School in Stone Mountain, Georgia, proudly displays her “Stop AIDS” t-shirt during World AIDS Day.
middle schools - activelyparticipated in the program by completing applications and receiving mini-grants to support activities and programs based around World AIDS Day, which is commemorated every year on December 1st. This year's student-led activities included spoken word competitions, step performances, skits, round table discussions, and releasing balloons with messages for loved ones lost to AIDS. More than 13,300 students were reached with information about how HIV/AIDS is spread, prevention methods, the effects of the epidemic worldwide, and how it can affect their own families here at home. Thank you to the program's sponsors: Cousins Foundation, DeKalb County Schools, Jocoba Marketing, and Montag & Caldwell. To find out about 2009 sponsorship opportunities, please contact Drew Schuler at 404-634-5748 (x290) or dschuler@globalhealthaction.org. (Top)
Sujatha de Magry: Tamil Nadu, India Sujatha de Magry graduated from Global Health Action's (GHA) International Health Management Course (IHMC) in 1975. Magry said it has been her work through GHA's second generation organization, INSA/India, that led her to a 1989 AIDS conference in Nashville, Tenn. "In 1990, very few people knew about AIDS," said Magry. By 1992, Magry with the help of GHA started one of India's first HIV/AIDS education and prevention programs.
The group's initial concern was with teenage students. With the eight-grade students the group would discuss hygiene and substance abuse. With the ninth- and tenth-graders, the group would discuss in more detail reproductive health, drug abuse, AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. To date, the organization has reached more than 1 million men, women and youth. HIV/AIDS information is now included in INSA/India's health care programs in various youth and women's clubs, and the group has included HIV/AIDS information in its training of health care workers. Public awareness of AIDS has been slow going in India. A conservative government limits the amount of information that is distributed to the population. Magry believes that in order to combat the AIDS crisis in India a widespread movement is needed. As part of this effort, Magry has held seminars for many of India's Hindu, Muslim and Christian leaders. She is committed to helping her people become more educated on the disease and ways they can prevent it from spreading. (Top)
LEAP Program: DeKalb County, Georiga (April 2007) Twelve year-old "Latasha" was one of the "tough girls" in this spring's Leadership, Empowerment, Action, and Health Promotion (LEAP) Program. The LEAP Program, a collaboration between Global Health Action and the DeKalb County School System, serves adolescent girls between 10 and 15 years of age and aims to prevent high-risk health behaviors and enhance girls' strengths through health education, leadership training, and awareness of themselves and others. The girls are recommended for the program by school counselors. Some are girls who need information and a forum to ask questions. Some are girls with behavioral issues.
Latasha was part of the second group, and from day one, it was clear she was only in the program because she had to be. She was standoffish and unpleasant. She didn't know any of the other girls in the program, and she didn't want to know any of them. Every session, she would sit alone at an empty table and dare anyone to sit with her. She only participated in the discussions and activities when she had to.
This went on for a number of weeks until the session on community mapping - a workshop in which the girls identify the relationships and connections in their lives. GHA's facilitator read one of the slips of paper from the always-available "Question Box," which serves as a way for the girls to ask questions or make comments anonymously: “My Dad doesn't live with me and it makes me mad and sometimes it can make me cry. What should I do?” Then, out of nowhere, Latasha opened up to the group: "I act like this because my Dad left and I don't know if I'll ever have anyone who'll be there for me. I'm mad all the time and . . . " Latasha talked and talked, and the other girls, who she had spent so much time pushing away, were kind and supportive, offering comfort and their own stories. For Latasha that was a turning point. After that outpouring of bottled-up feelings, she came and participated willingly. She wanted to be there. She smiled and was friendly with the other girls. In fact, she became a leader in organizing and presenting the group's end-of-program community action project. And, on the day she received her certificate as a LEAP graduate, her smile was broad and bright. (Top)
Mimose Pierre’s Story: La Colline, Haiti (September 2006) Mimose Pierre is a wife and mother of four young children. She is a resident of the town of La Colline in Haiti. Now, thanks to Global Health Action’s Haitian Goat Project, she is also a farmer.
	“Hello, I am Mimose Pierre and I live in La Colline, a small town 17 km from the Goat Center in Darbonne.You can see me and my family in the picture above. There is my husband, and four children ages 12 to 1 ½ years. That is me on the right, holding the baby, Iatson. My son, Lovinson, loves to look after the goats, and in a way I guess you could say they look after him, too. Before we had goats, he could not go to school because I could not pay for the fees, the supplies and the uniforms. In 2003, I got my first goat from the GHA program and that goat has given birth to seven kids since then. I’ve sold four of them and earned $215, enough money to pay the school expenses for all of my children each year. I have returned one of the female kids to the program as I promised I would do, and we still have our original doe and two kids at home with us. My husband is happy and proud of me for doing this work for our family.” (Top)