Program Updates September 2006
The summer of 2006 has been a very busy and productive one for Volunteer Kenya / ICODEI. From May to September we had 48 volunteers participate in our education, healthcare, and development programs. Our summer volunteers included people from the USA, Canada, and the UK .
The HIV/AIDS Education program was again a huge success. Our volunteers spoke to thousands of people in the rural villages and continued our EMPOWER peer education training program. At the mobile clinics, between 100 and 150 people were evaluated and treated or referred each day. Due the extremely high demand for healthcare services in the rural villages we were working in, our volunteers typically left the farm to work at 8:00AM and did not return until after dark (around 7:00-8:00PM). Our main obstacle in running the mobile clinics is obtaining medicine. Our budget from the volunteer fees was rapidly eaten up by purchasing medicine for the mobile clinics. Any upcoming volunteer medical students are encouraged to check with their schools and hospitals to see if they can get donations of medicine and medical supplies to bring to Kenya .
Our Microenterprise Development Program began to revisit previous groups that had received funding from us in order to assess the impact that our donations have made and to assist the groups in improving and growing their projects. Several volunteers also raised money before their trip in order to give out some loans to existing groups for such things as a new cow, bulk maize/milk/beans, bee hives, etc.
Epico Jahns Academy continues to expand. This summer, the classroom for the 5th grade was constructed through donations from overseas volunteers and donors and will soon be filled with eager students in January.
During August, Rev. Reuben traveled to Indiana University (USA) to attend an international education conference at the IU School of Education. Reuben attended the conference as a representative of ICODEI, who has been hosting IU education students on their overseas student teaching assignments for almost 5 years now. Also in attendance at the conference were representatives from other international education organizations from all over the world including Russia , China , Mexico , and various European countries. During Reuben's time in the US he also spoke to numerous groups in Bloomington, IN, Cleveland, OH and Austin, TX about our work in Kenya .
We are happy to report that we received a $4,000 donation from the University of Pittsburg Medical School’s Kenya Pediatric HIV Program (http://www.pittmed.pitt.edu/KPHP/). The money donated will be used to help children affected by HIV. Children do not need to be infected with HIV in order to be affected by the virus and so we have decided to use the first installment of $2000 to: (1) help print the EMPOWER manuals for our HIV/AIDS peer education programs, which train selected secondary school students to be peer educators within their school and community on HIV/AIDS, and (2) assist with the lunches served at Epico Jahns Academy to over 300 students, many of whom are orphans or have had one of their parents die from AIDS.
This money will help guarantee all these children at least one healthy meal a day. We greatly appreciate this donation and thank all the Pitt medical students who were involved in raising this money. It will surely make a huge difference to those who most desperately need it.
We currently have 3 volunteers in Kenya working on our Microenterprise Development Program and 1 working with the clinical and HIV/AIDS programs. We eagerly await the arrival of over 10 other volunteers in November and December, including a group of medical students from Cornell University (USA).