Support Groups May Need Support Too

To Lanet, not far from Nakuru. We turned up for a support group meeting for people with HIV. It's not unusual for people to be very late for meetings but an hour after it was due to start it was clear that people were not going to come. I wouldn't blame them if the rumour I heard was true; that one of the local churches was distributing free maize! Well, after a while three people drifted in. They wanted some medicines that we were able to distribute. Two got their medicines and drifted out.

One man sat and talked for a while. Although many people who need antiretroviral drugs in Kenya are not getting them, perhaps as many as 65%, some of those who do get them are very happy to have arrested the disease. This man is healthy and fit to work. Unfortunately, there is no work for him to do. And it's difficult staying fit and healthy with no guaranteed income.

I also met an 11 year old girl who had had meningitis. She had known that she was HIV positive but she was not receiving enough medical attention to catch the meningitis in time and now she is blind. Her mother refuses to believe that her daughter's eyes could be permanently damaged and has yet to take her to be assessed. Perhaps her sight could be saved. If not, she needs to get back to her education as soon as possible and to get her specific needs attended to.

Some kind of support group may well be able to help the two people I met today, I don't know. But several people I have spoken to have alluded to the fact that there are so many groups and meetings that they can sometimes interfere with each other. Perhaps there's a case for a bit of networking, so support groups can support each other as sell as supporting their members.

Support Group Meeting, Bondeni

There has been rain on most days for the past couple of weeks so maybe the short rains have started in earnest. At least a bit of rain is better than none. There are many crops that are at the stage where they need rain badly. But some areas, apparently, are threatened with flooding. It's so disconcerting to be in a place where a long drought can turn into a devastating flood.

But we were in Bondeni for a meeting of members of a support group. They get together to discuss matters of common interest and share experiences and advice about things like microcredit, farming, income generating schemes and anything else that can be of help to the group. Well, it was a long haul for me, I admit. The meeting was due to start at ten but I was assured that if I turned up at 11 it would just be taking off. We got there before 11, started at 1130 and it was nearly 1400 by the time we finished. That's a long time to sit on a bench made for very small children.

As for the income generation schemes discussed, they included the usual things: hens, cows, bead jewellery, crochet and market gardening. Apparently hens are old hat and people are being advised to buy dairy cows. Of course, most income generation schemes only really get off the ground if the person or people involved work very hard and have a fair amount of luck. Some of these ingredients can be in short supply. But I'd like to come across people who are doing something different to generate income, something that people all across the country are not doing. But when I come across such schemes, I'll be sure to post them up here.