Day 11 – HIV and AIDS a Visionary Model for Africa
HIV and AIDS is the most serious issue facing Africa today. You cannot escape its impact at every level and almost always comes up in conversations. In Kenya, there is one woman who is laying down the vision and model for attacking this disease. We had the pleasure and honour of meeting, Jane Wathome the founder of Beacon of Hope.
Jane Wathome is a remarkable woman who fatigued from the corporate workplace decided to pursue higher studies Biblical Counselling and wrote a thesis on HIV and Aids. After graduation, she had some attractive offers awaiting her including one from the United Nations. But she declined them all to pursue her own vision to make a real difference in the world. She decided something needed to be done about the HIV and Aids in the communitiy and she saw a big gap between the local communities and the Church. The church attributes to much negativity to the AIDs issue and isolates those who are victims of this disease. To address this gap Jane founded Beacon of Hope an NGO, in 2002, dedicated to improving the lives of these communities.
HIV and Aids is a problem of poverty and lack of education and economic development. This issue is often addressed as a medical problem by Western Countries. Jane’s approach at Beacon of Hope is to address the problem at the grass roots level as a socio-economic issue. Beacon of Hope programs include:
- Food Relief
- Income Generating Activities by selling products that the community makes
- A DayCare facility for the children of the women who are a part of BOH. A Sponsorship program to aid children.
- Medical Assistance through Alliances with Hospitals who provide medical services to BOH individuals at no cost.
- VCT (Voluntary Counselling and Testing Centre for HIV testing and AIDS victims)
- Spiritual Nurturing and Counselling to provide women the courage to live their lives.
Jane describes her vision and tells us her personal story.:
- A Vocational Centre to provide skills training for women
- A production centre to make products that will generate revenue (rugs, textiles, place mats, bags etc.)
- A Fulltime Clinic (the current clininc is only operational 1 day per week)
- Support women who are diagnosed with AIDS but do not want to gice up their children
- A Well Baby Clinic
- The DayCare will be expanded to a Primary School
- A VCT
- Programs for Young Men that will include Sports, IT Training and a Youth Social Centre
- A fulltime kitchen that will serve BOH partcipants and guests to generate additional revenues
- Hostels to accommodate teams who support BOH on a voluntary basis
- A multipurpose hal that will serve as a church, meetings and provide adult literacy courses.
The new facilities will become the property of BOH in Jan 2006. Jane believes she will realize her vision within 2 years to operationalize it.
Phase 1: Finance the Construction
Phase 2: Construct and Renovate
Phase 3: Migrate current facilities and ensure these are operational
Phase 4: Build Youth Resource Centre, Hostel, Multi-Purpose Hall and Primary School
Phase 5: Add 2 new satellite sites one in Eldoret in the West and the other in Machakos in the East.
The current BOH offices are on leased land and rented offices. But today with the support of key members of the community she has raised enough money to own 8 acres of land where she has plans for building the new facility called the New Comprehensive Centre for Beacon if Hope, which will house the new and improved BOH programs. The blueprint and plans and framed in the main waiting room. These plans were drawn up by a generous architect who donated his services.
After this engaging primer on BOH, Jane takes us around the facility to show us all of the programs described above in action. Her progress to date is staggeringly amazing. BOH has a store selling the products made by the women in the Prestige Mall in Nairobi that is producing enough revenue to pay for the retail space and provide income for the women.
She introduces us to a young man, Patrick who is waiting to escort us to his homestead in the nearby slums. His sisters, nieces and nephews are sitting in the garden around the home. His 95 year old father greets us warmly and invites us into the home, a humble mud thatched structure with tin roof. We enter the living room, a small, dark room with low ceilings and very hot. The conversation is in Swahili. The purpose of the visit is to discuss the family’s plan to enable the Spinning wheel they have just acquired to spin yarn for BOH and become a supplier to other centres as well. Their plans to enable their plans could be delayed as they need quality combs for the yarn to produce quality products. Each comb costs 2,000 Kenyan Shillings (about $30 Cdn) and the family will have to wait until they earn enough from their current involvement with the BOH to produce products. Patrick and his sisters have all been trained at the centre and they are eager to apply their new skills and become self sufficient. His father is very hopeful and is expressing his gratitude to Jane and the BOH for this wonderful opportunity to turn his humble homestead into a self-sufficient enterprise. He quotes: “A man who holds on to a branch can be sure to fall as it will break. A man who holds on to his faith will be rewarded”.
Back at the Centre, Kathleen and I do what little we can and donate the money for the combs so that Patrick and his family can move on to the next phase of their business plan.
Jane is the symbol of hope for the women, men and children who are today participating in the BOH programs. Our assessment is that the Beacon of Hope is a holistic model that can be replicated by any African community or Nation.
We feel blessed to have met Jane.
