Living Positive Mlolongo
Living Positive Mlolongo is a branch of Living Positive Program based in Mlolongo, Kenya supporting HIV positive women to empower them, educate them on HIV/AIDS and improve their lives. It targets around 200 women living positively in Mlolongo town, their children and family and even more with time and the development of the organization. The women will be selected based on criteria developed by community health workers who are aware of the economic and health situations.
Living Positive Mlolongo is a branch of Living Positive Program based in Mlolongo, Kenya supporting HIV positive women to empower them, educate them on HIV/AIDS and improve their lives. It targets around 200 women living positively in Mlolongo town, their children and family and even more with time and the development of the organization. The women will be selected based on criteria developed by community health workers who are aware of the economic and health situations.
LPM wants to give the women alternatives to prostitution. It seeks to address the situation in Mlolongo by empowering both the affected and infected people so that they can lead quality lives. Indeed studies have shown that many commercial sex workers choose to remain sexually involved in the business despite the knowledge of the potential role the commercial sex industry is playing in the HIV pandemic. They explained that the benefits, which are immediate, overweighed the distant drawbacks of HIV infection. That is why there is a huge need to help the women and teach them skills in order to find an alternative to prostitution. The women will be organised in groups of 5 to 10 and assisted to engage income generating activities like decorating sandals with beads, making baskets, making soap and bead work. We are now struggling to get a starting capital for all the activities and to look for local markets or foreign visitors and volunteers to sell the items.
LPM also wants to enhance psycho-social capital among those infected and affected by HIV and AIDS. Weekly supports groups are organized so that the women can share their daily problems and get support and solutions from the others. Talking to the other women may also help then accept their status and encourage them to live positively. Group counselling therapies will take place regularly for the one in need. Finally trough monthly forums, the women will be educated on HIV/AIDS and prevention to become aware of the HIV situation in the country, the transmission modes, the use of anti-retrovirals... The aim of all these activities is to develop a strong support network for PLWHA (People Living With HIV and AIDS) in Mlolongo, reduce the stigma associated with HIV and AIDS amongst communities and enhance psycho- social support available for these people.
These are some of the vegetables in our farm. The group members take care of the vegetables in turns. The sales go to the members who also keep part of it to a safe deposit with the organization. Through irrigation from a nearby river, members grow vegetables for sale in the local markets. This is a reliable way of farming due to the problems caused by production being affected by unfavorable weather changes. The group intends to reduce poverty among the poor members by earning a modest income from the carefully tended vegetable beds.
We plant for each member vegetables in a sack. The advantage is that they occupy a very small area and are easy to manage. Sack farming involves planting vegetable seedlings on the sides of earth-filled synthetic sacks that are placed on rooftops or doorsteps. Sack farming can be practiced anywhere in the world, as it does not require farmland and rainwater. This program on sack farming provides a glimmer of hope for managing household food security for the members since they do not own land and are living in tiny houses with no compounds.
This is a house for one of the group members. It hosts seven family members.
HIV/ AIDS situation in Mlolongo
Mlolongo town is located twenty kilometres southeast of Nairobi and only 5-8kms from the outlying industrial area east of the city, on the Mombasa, Kampala (Uganda) highway. Mlolongo is now a booming town due to its strategic location: many people living there either work in the emergent industries like cement factories or commute to Nairobi every day. It is now a town with 80 000 inhabitants, several clinics, a couple of schools, two major colleges, and several banks. There are also three slums located close to Mlolongo with iron-built houses and very bad living conditions: Kicheko, City Coton and Kwa Mbemba.
Mlolongo is also a key truck point for long distance lorry drivers on the East African route from the port of Mombasa or Tanzania to Kampala, Kigali and Goma in Uganda. It was the ideal location for a weighbridge where all the trucks entering Nairobi must be weighed and pay accordingly. That is how the town got its name, meaning “queuing” because of the high number of trucks waiting or parked along the highway at night. The place is very lively at night and has attracted many poor women desperate to earn some money being involved in commercial or transactional sex work for survival. That’s why nobody likes to say that they live in Mlolongo. Even the streets names like remind everybody of this hard reality. 2 400 truck park along the Mombasa road overnight at 39 highway stops with Mlolongo among them and attracting around 5 600 prostitutes.
Studies have revealed that there is a strong association between transportation hubs and HIV /AIDS prevalence. Towns along the highway tend to have higher prevalence rates than interior towns. It is indeed noticeable in Mlolongo where the prevalence is 12% instead of the average 7.4% in the country.
Prostitution is a main cause of HIV infection. This can be explained by the multiple sex partners, the lack of education and knowledge about HIV, lack of prevention by using a condom and lack of bargaining power to fight for the reproductive and health rights. Female sex workers are vulnerable, especially when they are related to truck drivers, as these men are currently estimated to have the highest prevalence of HIV and AIDS at 25%. Unfortunately along the Mombasa highway, 30 % of the female sex workers clients are truck drivers.
Mlolongo town is located twenty kilometres southeast of Nairobi and only 5-8kms from the outlying industrial area east of the city, on the Mombasa, Kampala (Uganda) highway. Mlolongo is now a booming town due to its strategic location: many people living there either work in the emergent industries like cement factories or commute to Nairobi every day. It is now a town with 80 000 inhabitants, several clinics, a couple of schools, two major colleges, and several banks. There are also three slums located close to Mlolongo with iron-built houses and very bad living conditions: Kicheko, City Coton and Kwa Mbemba.
Mlolongo is also a key truck point for long distance lorry drivers on the East African route from the port of Mombasa or Tanzania to Kampala, Kigali and Goma in Uganda. It was the ideal location for a weighbridge where all the trucks entering Nairobi must be weighed and pay accordingly. That is how the town got its name, meaning “queuing” because of the high number of trucks waiting or parked along the highway at night. The place is very lively at night and has attracted many poor women desperate to earn some money being involved in commercial or transactional sex work for survival. That’s why nobody likes to say that they live in Mlolongo. Even the streets names like remind everybody of this hard reality. 2 400 truck park along the Mombasa road overnight at 39 highway stops with Mlolongo among them and attracting around 5 600 prostitutes.
Studies have revealed that there is a strong association between transportation hubs and HIV /AIDS prevalence. Towns along the highway tend to have higher prevalence rates than interior towns. It is indeed noticeable in Mlolongo where the prevalence is 12% instead of the average 7.4% in the country.
Prostitution is a main cause of HIV infection. This can be explained by the multiple sex partners, the lack of education and knowledge about HIV, lack of prevention by using a condom and lack of bargaining power to fight for the reproductive and health rights. Female sex workers are vulnerable, especially when they are related to truck drivers, as these men are currently estimated to have the highest prevalence of HIV and AIDS at 25%. Unfortunately along the Mombasa highway, 30 % of the female sex workers clients are truck drivers.
Hard conditions of employment for the truck drivers contribute to their high risk sexual behavior that is to say being away from home and their wife for a long time, earning a low income, driving long hours and being exhausted and lonely. Significant associations were also found between HIV seropositivity among the drivers and lower level of education, lower income, older age, longer duration of driving, fewer visits to their wives per month and more visits to prostitutes per month. A study has revealed that along the Mombasa- Uganda highway, only 25% of the bars have condom dispensers and 73% distribute or sell condoms. The situation is even worse in Uganda concerning the distribution and use of condoms, thus resulting in the spread of HIV among trucks drivers.
Only a few VCT centres can be found in Mlolongo resulting in a lack of testing among the women who thus do not know about their status and keep on spreading HIV through unprotected sex. Moreover the stigma is very high and most women are too scared to be seen in a place, like VCT or PMTCT (Prevention of Mother To Child Transmission) implying that they may be infected with HIV.
Interns/ Volunteers
You want to come to Kenya to volunteer either for a few weeks or a few months? Why not at Living Positive Mlolongo? Are you an open-minded person who is looking for an opportunity to help HIV positive women and discover a new culture and way of life? You have found the right place and you can help us in Mlolongo by visiting the HIV positive women in the homes, updating the profiles database, teaching the women more on HIV/AIDS, teaching them new skills they can use to generate an income.
Living Positive Mlolongo is also in co-operation with a local mission hospital, so interns with medical background will have an opportunity to work for a few days each week at the hospital that is taking care of the HIV positive women in Mlolongo.
Find out more about the internship possibilities at the internship section!
Only a few VCT centres can be found in Mlolongo resulting in a lack of testing among the women who thus do not know about their status and keep on spreading HIV through unprotected sex. Moreover the stigma is very high and most women are too scared to be seen in a place, like VCT or PMTCT (Prevention of Mother To Child Transmission) implying that they may be infected with HIV.
Interns/ Volunteers
You want to come to Kenya to volunteer either for a few weeks or a few months? Why not at Living Positive Mlolongo? Are you an open-minded person who is looking for an opportunity to help HIV positive women and discover a new culture and way of life? You have found the right place and you can help us in Mlolongo by visiting the HIV positive women in the homes, updating the profiles database, teaching the women more on HIV/AIDS, teaching them new skills they can use to generate an income.
Living Positive Mlolongo is also in co-operation with a local mission hospital, so interns with medical background will have an opportunity to work for a few days each week at the hospital that is taking care of the HIV positive women in Mlolongo.
Find out more about the internship possibilities at the internship section!