By Daniel Ogola | Country Director
In August 2010, Matibabu Foundation conducted the first Jiggers are very irritating parasites that cause a lot of embarrassment to the victims at times it lowers the self esteem of the sufferers and makes them be stigmatized and discriminated by others. It badly irritates the victims and can hinder ones movement if severe because of excessive pain and discomfort felt by the victims. If it affects the hands severely one cannot write or work using his hands. Some community members in Nyalenya Community (North Ugenya) and Kathieno A sub-location community (East Ugenya) suffer immensely from the problem of jigger infestation. This problem has greatly affected the school going children who cannot concentrate in class during lessons giving birth to poor performance of the bright students who could have excelled well academically especially in the national examination. Some students are affected to extend that they cannot write. In order to address this problem Matibabu foundation partnered with Ace-Africa and Ministry of Public Health to carry out a jigger eradication and education exercise to help Nyalenya Primary school Pupils. Nyalenya Primary had 250 pupils affected by jiggers (the chemicals donated were inadequate to address the problem amicably) The total number of schools affected are 3 with population base of around 600 pupils. Matibabu Foundation would like to conduct jiggers eradication exercise in a holistic way with the involvement and full participation of the community targeting pupils at school and their homes as well as the community at large from their local home environment through; first empowering them and secondly through the eradication exercise. The organization will do this exercise in partnership with Community through the Community Units it facilitated the government to establish. Currently mapping of the affected household is underway; this noble step will help the organization in planning and mobilizing resources for the eradication exercise. Through empowering the Community Health Workers the exercise will be sustainable as they will be conducting regular community dialogue and Action Days to address any emerging health oriented. They will also help the community to take charge in matters of health affecting them using the local available resources at their disposal.
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