Saving Kenya's Environment Through Family Planning

It is during one of the CHAT outreach clinics in the slums, that Rose, CHAT FPCORP met with a young lady named Sakino* and wanted to understand her views about family planning and Population Health and Environment (PHE).

Being a single mother aged 24 and living with her three children in Majengo- Nanyuki slums, Sakino wished she did not have a lot of waste to get rid of or at least had a way of disposing of it that was safe for the environment. “With the growing number of people in my village, I do agree that our environment is deteriorating. There is an urgent need to make voluntary contraception available so that women and their families are able to live healthy, productive lives”. Due to the hard lifestyle in the slums, Sakino’s child developed a lot of stomach complications resulting in multiple hospital visits.  “She had recurring and new diseases and they could not find the cause of her sickness,” Sakinoi lamented.

“One day while on my way to the hospital, I met Rose while mobilizing for Family Planning (FP) services in the slums.  Rose advised me to boil all the water that I use in my household and maintain the hygiene in my household, she further challenged me to visit the clinic camp for further FP/ecological awareness services that was to be held at the chief’s camp,”Sakinoi narrates.

“I tried boiling the little water I could get and with time, my children’s health started improving.  My routine visits to the nearby health facility had reduced tremendously and that was when I realized that this might have been the major cause of my continuous visits to different hospitals to seek medical attention for my children,” Sakinoi confirms.

 “With the growing population in the slums, problems like poverty, unemployment and pollution is on the rise leading to major negative effects including improper waste disposal and hence, water borne diseases,” Sakinoi explains.

“The health and success of the poorest populations hinges on thriving natural ecosystems.  Women and youth are the most vulnerable and yet remain the most marginalized.  Accord[project]ing to Guttmacher, 225 million women want to prevent pregnancy but aren’t using an effective method of contraception. This is why CHAT has been providing free health related services including Family planning to these groups of people.  Research supports this link indicating that a smaller world population could lead to substantial long term climate related benefits by lowering carbon emissions and hence improving the health of the planet. My hope is that more headway will be made through environmental negotiations that acknowledge the compound benefits of rights-based voluntary family planning for women and children at the individual level and for the planet at a global level.  Ultimately, a decreasing population in the slums will benefit us all,” Rose confirms.

“According to Lawrence M. Krauss, the root cause of the looming energy problem- and the key to easing environmental, economic and religious tensions while improving public health- is to address the unending and unequal, growth of the human population. And the one proven way to reduce fertility rates is to empower young women by educating them and providing affordable family planning,” Rose further attests as the nurse starts offering health services.   

This quarter, December 2016 – February 2017, thanks to your donations (cost shared’) CHAT reached 10,803 individuals with family planning/ ecological awareness information, of which a total of 1,015 patients were treated for different conditions & 6,345 women with different FP contraception methods of their choice in 10 counties in Kenya.