'Life Begins After Knowing Your HIV Status'

WASHINGTON, Apr 2 (OneWorld.net) - Kenyan AIDS caregiver Pamela Adoyo was named one of the People of the Year for 2008 by OneWorld readers across the planet. In this impassioned and insightful dialogue, Adoyo explains how her rural community is coping with the AIDS epidemic through open dialogue, education, and heavy doses of emotional support.

In addition to raising her seven children, Adoyo manages 45 local women who are caregivers to the sick, checking regularly on 365 men and women in the area who are "down" with HIV/AIDS, and the nearly 2,000 AIDS orphans and other children affected by the epidemic.

Adoyo and her women have also built an orphanage, which houses 20 girls, provides meals and support for 55 other children, and hopes to take in its first group of boys soon.

In the dialogue below, Adoyo explains her motivations, the challenges she faces, and what keeps her going.

Special thanks to Patrick and Edwin Adoyo, Pamela's sons in Nairobi who helped coordinate the dialogue between OneWorld's readers across the globe, editors in the United States, and Pamela in the un-electrified, rural village of Dago, some six hours from Nairobi by bus.

Enjoy the discussion, and please add your own thoughts in the comment section. For more background on Pamela Adoyo and her work, see her profile in the People of 2008 edition of OneWorld's living magazine Perspectives.

About Pamela's Work

Jeff (Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA): Hi Pamela. Your work is very inspiring! Why did you decide to start working with people living with AIDS?

Pamela Adoyo: After seeing the hopelessness, loneliness, stigmatization, hunger, despair, and deaths the affected and infected families undergo, I, alongside other women in my village, decided to form a group that could act as an agency to voice and coordinate their problems and educate them and the community at large on HIV/AIDS issues.

OneWorld Editors: How does your team of women help the people they look in on?

PA: We have partnered with other NGOs (non-governmental organizations) to help them get medical care and support -- ARVs (anti-retroviral treatments); we have also had immune supplements and boosters for the emaciated and little children. We have also arranged for a number of forums and seminars to help sensitize, educate, and create awareness to help overcome issues of stigmatizations, cultural beliefs, and practices that promote the spread of AIDS, as well as help them get things like blankets and mosquito nets. And we have also helped widows build houses.

The most outstanding one is the construction of the orphanage that is taking care of 75 orphans -- we have a day-care feeding program that takes care of their breakfast and lunch then dinner for the 20 vulnerable girls we are housing. We are also sourcing for means and ways to educate the orphans -- from school uniforms, school fees, and books.

Anonymous OneWorlder: Hi Pamela. First of all, congratulations! How has OneWorld's awards and coverage affected your work? Is there more help coming?

PA: For now the best we have got from OneWorld's awards is the global exposure it has given us -- letting the whole world know about us and all that we undertake here in Dago.

We are also very optimistic good things will come our way because anyone who gets a chance to read/log into OneWorld's Web site will be moved by our story and victory -- a small group in the poorest village of Kenya competing with some of world respected firms and becoming number 2 (in OneWorld's People of the Year voting). If Internet and all the technology was as good in Dago as the rest of the world, we would have won.

Lessons Learned

J.P. (Washington, DC, USA): Hi Pamela! What would you say is the most challenging aspect about working with people and families living with AIDS?

PA: The stigmatization, cultural beliefs, and practices that help in HIV/AIDS spread -- wife inheritance, alcoholism, early marriages, and unprotected sex, medical care, and support for the affected.

For the infected, educating the society on how to care for the sick, making the orphans understand what has happened to their parents and brothers.

We also have problems of how to get the sick to health care centers for treatments, VCT (voluntary counseling and testing), collection of medicines, and referrals -- Dago is five kilometers (three miles) from the nearest health care center and thus most of families can not afford to take their sick people for such services.

J.P. (Washington, DC, USA): What lessons have you learned from your experience that you might pass on to your colleagues in the U.S. and around the world?

PA: Being HIV positive is not the end of life. That life begins after knowing your HIV status, if you are positive, you live positively, and if you are negative you take good care of yourself.

Janet (Embu, Kenya): Hi Pamela. am so proud of u for the work u do to the society. i am interested to do the same thing especially by encouraging my fellow youthmates and also serving infected and affected people. i live in eastern part of Kenya. how do i start it and what are the major challenges that i should be prepared to face?

Response from Edwin Odoyo, Pamela's oldest son: (1) I'll let her know that she has to register her group with the ministry of gender and social services. (2) Based on her targeted group, she has to know the best approach she deems good for her based on her community's cultural beliefs and practises. (3) Conduct surveys to gauge the perception, feelings, opinions and level of HIV/AIDS awareness. Thereafter she can link with other agencies, groups, or individuals with vast knowledge to help her sensitize her targeted group of people.

The greatest challenges she should expect is the stigmatization, cultural beliefs, and practices that help the spread and the gender disparity -- women/girls not expected to take/talk about certain things about marriage, condom use, cultural practices, and level of education.

Liz G. Wow, Pamela's work is very impressive! Here's my question for her: You must already be busy as a mother of seven children, yet you've shown great leadership with your work as an AIDS caregiver. For those who say they are too busy with their personal lives to help others in need, what advice could you give to them to motivate them to take action and volunteer in some small way?

PA: All I can tell you is that, you do not have do it personally but the little support that you give both the infected and affected is much more than you trying to reach everyone.

You can help feed the orphans, you can help an orphan get to go to school, you can help an affected person(s) get medical support. You can even help poor orphans, widows, and the elderly parents get better housing.

As a group you can also empower us in any way to help us reach more affected and infected people.

About the Orphanage

Jeff (Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA): Hi Pamela. I'd like to know more about your orphanage. When did you start it? How many kids are staying there? How old are they? What is the daily life like for them? Do you have a large staff to run the orphanage? Where do the kids go to school? There must be more kids in the area who need help like this, right? How do you decide which kids can come stay at the orphanage and which kids can't? What happens to the kids who can't stay at your orphanage? Do you have plans to make the orphanage bigger? Is there anything we can do to help you from here?

Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions, and congratulations on your great work!

PA: Dago Dala Hera ("Home of Love") was built in 2003. Currently we are housing 20 vulnerable girls -- we are saving them from guardians who were abusing them sexually and physically -- all we have is a girls' dormitory.

We are still looking for well wishers, friends, or organizations that can help us build a boys' dormitory.

Besides that we have a day-care feeding program that takes care of the 75 orphans we have. Day-care just takes care of the breakfast and lunch for the entire population.

We have our local primary school where the orphanage is built -- that's where they all go to school.

Yes we have more kids to take care of but we can't support all of them because of the financial constraints. For now we just depend on friends and well wishers.

We also have orphans that are physically challenged -- disabled whom we can not help for now too.

We admit kids based on their vulnerability. For now all we have admitted are from our locality.

Yes you can support us in many ways -- the day-care feeding program, school fees, and uniforms and books, clothing.

We also intend to be self-reliant; we are planning to purchase some piece of land to grow our own food stuff rather than buying all the time.

Renee, Baby James Foundation, USA: Hello Pamela I would like to tell you great work.
My question is how do you handle the loss of some of the children? How do you explain to the other children when they lose one of their child friends in the orphanage?

Response from Edwin Odoyo, Pamela's oldest son: All i can say is that it used to be a major concern and challenge to our community, church, school, and the orphanage fraternity but we learned to overcome it. We counsel, educate, and most of all we have created an open chanelled flow of information from the affected, infected -- and trained personnel to talk to the kids on HIV/AIDS -- means of acquiring it, modes of transfer, and the expected outcomes if one is positive.

Anonymous OneWorlder: Hi Pamela. Many congratulations on your Award! What ideas do you have to make Dago Dala Hera sustain itself, especially in these times when donors -- big and small -- are cutting back?

We are very inspired by your work. Thank you.

PA: For one, we are working on ways of buying a piece of land to feed ourselves -- grow food stuff now that their prices have sky rocketed. We have identified an 11-acre plot that goes for around 1 million Kenya Shillings [about $12,500 -- see conversion] inclusive of legal fees. On the piece of land we want to do large scale farming. The surplus will be sold to generate more income, thus we can get to do other pressing things like medical support for the children, uniforms, and school fees for the children.

Video: Children at the Dago Dala Hera Orphanage (© Alex Moe / New America Media)

Dialogue continues below...

About AIDS and the Community

Thomas (Washington, DC, USA): In addition to your support work, do you think it's important to teach people about AIDS as well? What kind of educational outreach does your group do? How do people respond to your efforts?

PA: Yes it's important to teach people about AIDS. We do outreach on behavior change, sensitization, stigmatization and cultural beliefs and practices that promote AIDS spread - wife inheritance, female genital mutilation (FGM), and polygamy. We also teach gender empowerment, human rights, drug abuse, and alcoholism in the aspect of spread of HIV/AIDS.

Thomas (Washington, DC, USA): How do you deal with the stigma or taboo that AIDS carries? In America this is a big problem for HIV counselors because there continues to be a lot of shame and fear surrounding the disease. How do you get past this in Kenya?

PA: It's a problem here too. We are struggling to help overcome it by making the community understand the whole idea surrounding HIV/AIDS, protected sex, shunning certain cultural beliefs and practices -- wife inheritance, polygamy, female genital mutilation (FGM).

OneWorld Editors: How has the AIDS epidemic impacted the local economy?

PA: Economically we are really affected -- we have lost most of the youths and strong members of the community. Our farms, cattle, and homes are not attended to. All we have are widows, orphans, the sick, and the elderly who have very little to offer.

OneWorld Editors: How has the AIDS epidemic impacted the local school systems?

PA: Our schools are the worst hit; statistics show that we lose 700 teachers per day.

The effect also trickles down to kids -- we have teachers who have affairs with kids, thus really infecting them.

Several kids too have opted out of school to care for their sick parents. Others too have opted out to do casual labor to feed their families.

Other young girls have opted for early/polygamous marriages or prostitution as a way out.

Anonymous OneWorlder: Hi Pamela. How are the men assisting in fighting the AIDS pandemic in your village? Are they involved in the projects?

PA: Yes, we have a number of men helping in the fight. We have some helping in facilitation, others are educators, and others care givers too.

Pamela's Personal Challenges and Rewards

Jennifer Hodge: Hi Pamela. I cannot begin to express how much I truly admire your amazing efforts. In the midst of all that you do, what are some of the biggest challenges that you have faced in your journey to help your community? Was there ever a time that you felt like giving up?

PA: Fighting our cultural beliefs and practices such as polygamy, wife inheritance, women leadership. Admitting the girls to the orphanage, we had to select based on vulnerability. We have girls who have been sexually and physically abused, some forced to early marriages and others prostitution. The biggest challenge now is explaining to the orphaned boys why they cannot be admitted to the girls' dormitory and why they do not have their own dormitory.

Yes, you feel like quitting, but the hopelessness, poverty, hunger, and deaths, gives you the power to drive on no matter the opposition.

Susan: Hello Pamela. I would like to know what is the most rewarding part of what you do?

PA: To the hopeless have hope in life, the sick get Medicare, and the orphans have food, home, uniform, and fees to go to school. I also get really fulfilled when the infected are accepted and treated as other community members.

Congratulations and Thoughts for the Future

Eloise (Nairobi, Kenya): Habari Pamela! The world needs more people like you. I am a Jamaican-Canadian currently living and working in Nairobi. I would love to meet you and see if there is anyway that I can be of help in the work that you do. Please get in touch with me at [email address redacted].

Willette (Holland, The Netherlands): Dear Pamela,

Many congratulations with all the good and brave work you do! The world could not do without people like you. Thank you very very much. May God's blessing be with you all the days of your life!

Kind regards from Holland.

Sarah Virgo, American Eastern Institute, USA: We are hoping to identify natural alternatives to help with the management of this disease. God bless you for your superior service to your community.

Anonymous OneWorlder (San Francisco, California, USA): What's your greatest source of hope for Kenya in these very difficult times?

PA: My greatest source of hope is that if we could acquire the 11 acres plot we are really working hard to get, because from it, we will no longer be wary of food insecurity that is the biggest scare we face.

We cannot afford to call off the day-care feeding program that has helped feed the 75 orphans from 2004; we are the orphans' family -- parents, brothers, sisters, and cousins. We share at their times of joy and grief.

OneWorld Editors: Thanks again for taking the time out of your busy schedule to speak with us, Pamela! One final question: What are your plans for the future of the Dago Women's Group -- more of the same... or tackling other local problems too?

PA: Already we have incorporated other people; we are working alongside widows, youths, and other organizations.

We want the Dago Women's Group to be self-reliant -- run its activities fully and well. We are planning to do business, especially on hand-woven items, carvings and sculptures, soap stones, etc.

We are also planning to set up a place for the elderly, the physically challenged, the abused wives, and promote girl-child education as well as adult education to face off the illiteracy problem facing many Kenyans in the rural areas.

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OneWorld: What do you think? Add your thoughts and messages for Pamela and all the people of Dago below -- we'll be sure to pass them on!