In Kenya, a Massaai elder is changing cultural practices that could help HIV infections spread. Learn how education and traditional customs affect the spread of diseases in Africa.
This is Kibera, a slum in Nairobi, Kenya, home to about 1 million people. These children play without a care, just as it should be, but their reality is grim. They are all orphans, half of them because of AIDS.
"In the last five years, it has gotten worse and we have now more children who were abandoned and who were orphaned as a result of HIV/AIDS." George Nyakora was the national director of SOS children's villages in Kenya. They fight AIDS with community outreach, education and family strengthening programs.
"You realize that up to 60 percent of the bed occupancy in some of our hospitals at the moment are actually taken up by people who're HIV positive." An entire generation of Kenya is dying; it's difficult to find anyone who hasn't been touched.
"Do you have friends that have died?"
"Many, including family members, very many, I lost my sister to HIV/AIDS, I've got very close friends of mine, you know, some in hospital right now, you know, terminal cases right now."
Here, basic health care is out of reach, for many people, AIDS prevention is just another way to spend money they don't have." You have to make a choice between buying a condom or having a meal or having a drink that's going to knock your death, so that you forget your problems that would be."
The Kibera Integrated Community Self-Help Program offers a variety of services to those affected by HIV and AIDS. The group has said that Kibera records the highest HIV and AIDS prevalence rates in Nairobi.
Today Jacqueline Dbondo is administrating tests. This man fears an intoxicated night with a barmaid will be a death sentence. "The gentleman has been feeling unwell for the last five months; he was having some diarrhea, headache and feeling weak."
Although the adult prevalence of HIV appears to be decreasing in Kenya, people still test positive every day, and today is no different. "Some people, they still ignore that their education that to give them the condom use. They don't want to listen that, this is AIDS at all, so it is still the ignorance who are still ignoring." The result, the number of AIDS orphans in Kenya numbers over 1 million and in Kibera alone they reportedly number 50,000.
This place is called Nimborny, it's a home and safe haven for Kenya's smallest victims of the African AIDS pandemic. Most of these boys and girls come here directly from a hospital, abandoned at birth because they were HIV positive. Previously, two or three children passed away each month, but drug donations have had a huge impact on the death rate here. These children's struggles will be life-long; but they are no longer waiting to die. They are learning to live.
outreach：n.
A systematic attempt to provide services beyond conventional limits, as to particular segments of a community. e.g. educational outreach
intoxicated: adj.
happy, excited, and unable to think clearly, especially as a result of love, success, power etc
diarrhea: n. 痢疾,腹泻
Excessive and frequent evacuation of watery feces, usually indicating gastrointestinal distress or disorder. |