Reduce Suffering in Kenya Via Health Care Services

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*Not their real name

“When I started visiting the Obaria Beach at Lake Victoria in Western Kenya, I had the hope of not only reaching the fishermen who are busy out on the lake all day but also targeting the women who dry the caught fish around the shores," explained Emily, CHAT's CORP partner based at Kendu Bay in Homa Bay County. She went on to narrate that she understood the dynamics of her community well. She knew how vulnerable the women at the beach were, especially young women who relied on the fishermen and fishing activities for a living.

She remembers this young girl she interacted with on her very first day. "When I saw the yellow T-shirt and carrying a yellow bag on her back with a book in her hands, I was anxious to know what this lady was up to,” *Akinyi narrated. “She looked very composed and resourceful even at a distance,” she continued. She explains that though she had been busy spreading the fish to dry since morning, she wouldn’t mind enquiring what help the lady in the yellow T-shirt would be to her (CHAT CORP partners usually wear a bright yellow t-shirt to help community members identify them)

Emily met up with Akinyi on the shore and walked towards the fish-selling kiosks as they interacted. "Daktari, you should have come earlier than this! Many of us are suffering here, not knowing what to do nor where to go," Akinyi said after CORP Emily explained herself. Akinyi not only felt for herself but also for her friends, whom she knew would benefit enormously from Emily’s services. She would then tell Emily that she had had several men in her life, and she had a child from each of them, but only for them to leave her to bring them up alone. "I am a mother of three, two daughters and one son. It is not easy bringing them up, and I would not wish to have any more," Akinyi said emotionally. She explained how she had been mistreated by several of her boyfriends, recalling a scenario where she and three children spent a night in the rain outside after being chased out of the house at midnight.

"Had I known this long before, I wouldn't have made these mistakes. I don't regret my choices. I regret my ignorance and lack of knowledge," she said bitterly. "Now I have known the way and seen the light, I will return. Not alone, but with my friends who gave me company in this tough journey of ignorance," Akinyi said satirically. She would later introduce CORP Emily to a talk to the other girls and women at the beach. Emily recalls how Akinyi reacted when she saw her coming accompanied by a nurse the following day. Akinyi shouted joyfully, "Freedom is here!" Later, she would continue to be the one to link CORP Emily on when to bring the nurse to serve her other busy friends.

Thanks to GG support, in the past three months CHAT was able to reach: a total of 12,943individuals with behaviour change information (bcc), with 3,195 family planning clients receiving different contraception methods of their choice, of which 2,211 chose the long-term pregnancy protection methods of 3 & 5 years’ against unwanted pregnancies.

“If we don’t halt population growth with justice and compassion, it will be done for us by nature, brutally and without pity- and will leave a ravaged world.” Nobel Laureate Henry W. Kendall