Charity Projects    

“Counseling is restorative”, is the driving slogan and motto in our work. Since its inception, LECDEN-KENYA has always recognized and employed counseling. Though largely unappreciated, counseling is a unique strategy that is not only remedial, but ultimately enables one to cope with an adverse condition or circumstance. HIV infection is one such adverse circumstance that has challenged people in an immense way, thus the need to employ counseling. The emotional and psychological trauma that HIV occasions onto people infected with it, calls for the careful employment of counseling services by qualified service providers. LECDEN-KENYA has institutionalized counseling as a form of care that goes beyond the physical human person, a therapy that embraces the body and mind and enables people to cope and live with an adverse situation, learning and making progressive decisions out of informed consent.

Counseling has taken the forms of pretest, post-test and follow-up at the resource centers, clients’ homes and at Hospitals. Counseling has also been conducted at groups at our resource centers, thereby promoting self acceptance and coping among people living with HIV infection. Because of the increasing numbers of VCT (voluntary counseling and testing) centers and services, many persons end up at LECDEN-KENYA, having been referred by other centers for support counseling. It is therefore expected, that more post-test and follow-up counseling than pretest are being offered at LECDEN-KENYA

                   

Group therapy Counseling:

Apart from individual counseling sessions, our clients have continued to enjoy group therapy counseling sessions conducted monthly at all our resource centers. These are sessions that continue to provide mutual support and empowerment and serve as great learning opportunities for coping with HIV infection.

The group therapy counseling sessions explore different ways of coping with HIV/AIDS infection and provide mutual support forums where individual women share their personal experiences of living with the infection. At these forums, LECDEN-KENYA enlists the services of known HIV & AIDS care strategists to discuss coping strategies with the clients and strengthen their resolve to live. Some of the experts who have been invited to facilitate group therapies included the following:

• Medical Doctors

• Clinical psychologists

• Nutritionists

• Alternative therapists, eg massage therapists, aroma therapists

• Medical Researchers

• Legal officers, human rights advocates

• Local Government officials

• Treatment access advocates

Home based care:

Home based care continues to remain as a critical service to our clients. Home based care is required more when our clients are discharged from hospitals or when their health deteriorates to the extent that they require active support from other caregivers. In such instances, home based care takes the form of nursing care, giving bed-baths, detail cares, making some nutritious food or emotional support for continued coping.

With introduction of antiretroviral therapy at LECDEN-KENYA, home based care has also assumed the form of supportive drug adherence counseling, where our treatment support counselors explore with clients the importance of taking their medication without fail, offering them practical information and guide to adherence.

Medical care

As opportunistic infections continue threatening lives of our clients, it is obvious why LECDEN-KENYA is providing medical care services. These services is justified by the increasing economic hardships that many of our clients face, and the bureaucratic systems of accessing healthcare in public hospitals. In deed, over the years, LECDEN-KENYA, has again and again , proved that it is a safe place for her clients in accessing medical care.

The key facts of our medical care intervention upto year 2008/9 have included the following:

• Provision of drugs for opportunistic infections

• Availability of competent medical consultation from a qualified Medical Doctor, a clinical officer, supported by a nurse.

• Provision of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAARTS), upon competent diagnosis and laboratory investigations

• Treatment support and adherence counseling services offered at LECDEN-KENYA.

Through the above scenarios, our medical care program is now a complete system, providing prompt, effective and user-friendly therapy to our clients. Through other hospitals, especially KNH, we are able to honour prescriptions issued to our clients not only by the LECDEN-KENYA medical Doctor, but also by other centers where our clients seek medical consultations.

Courtesy of freinds and Well-wishers in the USA, Eyes on Nature Expeditions, a local tour firm in Kenya, we have been able to arrest opportunistic infections, support adherence to medication, monitor our clients and thereby improve their health considerably.

The community pharmacy, laboratory services, adherence counseling and treatment support group therapy counseling meetings for clients on ART provide competent and efficient medical care and support services to our clients with a view to improving their health standards.

The establishment of the community pharmacy, availability of essential drugs for opportunistic infections, medical monitoring (laboratory services) and adherence support for those on ART and TB medications, now make LECDEN-KENYA approach to medical care one of the most comprehensive ones among civil society organizations in Kenya.

With support of its partners, LECDEN-KENYA has transformed its medical care program into what her clients identify with, a safe haven for medical care. We quote one of our clients who is receiving medical care at LECDEN-KENYA:
 

The medical monitoring aspect of the intervention entails conducting essential monitoring and baseline testing such as CD4:CD8 counting, urinalysis, full hemoglobin and liver function tests, among others. These tests enable the medical officers as well as the social workers to be informed and be in the picture of the progress of the clients.

ORPHAN SUPPORT INITIATIVES
     

“Supporting mothers means supporting the children born to them also”…. This is a common wisdom at LECDEN-KENYA, first promoted in 2007, when during a group therapy counseling session, a lady stood up and asked the Directors the saddest question ever to be discussed at a group therapy session -“what happens to our children when we can no longer get the benefits of treatment, as is the obvious with HIV infection?    
                  

A lot of advancements have occurred and this wisdom may no longer have a lot of justification, especially because of life-prolonging ARVs. The fact, however, remains that women still succumb to HIV infection in great numbers and more children are being orphaned. Kenya is now home to over 1.5- 2.0 million orphaned children, mostly due to HIV & AIDS complications. Many orphans face devastations of untold proportions, are neglected, abused and at times, have to take on adult roles at such tender age as 10 years, fending for themselves and for their younger siblings

Prevention among the youth in schools

LECDEN-KENYA recognizes the need to continually engage with the youth in and out of schools to strengthen their understanding of HIV & AIDS and to foster positive behaviour change. To this extent, LECDEN conducts several sensitizations in selected primary schools since the year 2005, and formed more 5 AIDS clubs in primary schools in Nairobi, Makueni, Siaya and Homabay . Our community educators also continue with supportive interactions with AIDS clubs that were formed earlier in Nairobi.

Besides the AIDS clubs, LECDEN-KENYA was able to train 5 orphans in skills of tailoring and on how to support behaviour change communication in schools. These interventions have been able to promote a culture of discussing HIV/ADS in schools and demystified HIV infection. Through the AIDS clubs, a great transformation in thinking, perception and understanding of the pupils, their teachers and their parents has occurred.

There is a new realization that HIV & AIDS is a life-subject that pupils must learn and must be supported to learn. In Nairobi and Homa Bay for instance, many parents have shown interest in their children joining the AIDS clubs.

Eunice An older orphan tries out her dressmaking skills

Vocational trainings for older orphans

Historically, support for orphans and other vulnerable children has tended to focus more on the age brackets of 0-10 years. It happens then that OVCs over 14years have often been ignored with very sad consequences.

This is the program gap that LECDEN-KENYA strives to fill with the program on Vocational and life skills trainings for older OVC over the age of 14 years. We are therefore grateful to our partners for availing the financial support that has seen quite a number of older orphans and vulnerable children go to vocational training institutions (both formal and informal institutions).

Other older orphans using skills learnt in hair dressing at a hair dressing school in Kibera slum Line Saba

Nutrition care

LECDEN-KENYA has continued to be a pioneer in the use of nutrition in HIV & AIDS care. Throughout its existence, LECDEN-KENYA has positively acknowledged and embraced nutrition as a key strategy in HIV care. Nutrition has continued to be a complimentary and crosscutting issue within many of the programs being implemented by LECDEN-KENYA.

Nutrition has been mainstreamed well into ART, TB and general care. We have positively recognized that competent nutritional intervention will enhance recovery from TB disease, mitigate certain adverse side effects of TB and ARV therapy and will generally delay progression of HIV disease, in absence of any other therapy.

LECDEN-KENYA clients have continued to benefit from nutritional care that embraced not only the material support in terms of high-nutrient foodstuffs and immune-boosting supplements, but also competent information on nutrition, provided at individual counseling sessions at the centers and clients’ homes but also during the resource centre group therapy counseling sessions.

A special diet for children living with HIV/AIDS consists of eggs, chicken, milk and fruits.

Orphans feed at Kiambiu feeding centre: close to 200 children feed here every day, perhaps as their only source of nutritional nourishment. (Initially we had 2 day care but now we have one combined meaning all kids both from the daycare orphans and other vulnerable children do come to feed in this centre at riverside)
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CLICK HERE ON HOW YOU CAN HELP

For donors and well-wishers willing to support us in implementing some of our long term projects here are the proposals we have for submission:

1.   You can also contact us for long term help i.e Purchase of land, buildings for the welfare of the community especially our beneficiaries and members, etc. For any inquiries Please click here and fill the inquiry form

Please do not hesitate to request for a project proposal or contact LECDEN-KENYA through email:info@lecdenkenya.com or lecden_2005@yahoo.com
              
                Learn More About Other Charity Projects
  

Networking & Collaboration

LECDEN-KENYA boasts of its reputation of having a positive regard and recognition of its stakeholders both in and outside Kenya. Indeed, LECDEN-KENYA is perhaps one of the very few organizations in Kenya that applies the principle of networking, which, for instance enables many joint activities to be conducted with other organizations. A perfect picture is the December 2006 women rights workshop held in Nairobi, at which LECDEN-KENYA mobilized 30 NGOs and CBOs to participate in deliberations on what community organizations can do to strengthen the fight against violations of rights of women living with HIV & AIDS. We cherish these partnerships as they demonstrate the old saying that together we stand…

We are confident that we are gradually and consistently reducing the ravages of HIV/AIDS. We trust, pray and hope that with the wider efforts of the International community, HIV & AIDS will soon be a thing of the past, condemned to the dustbin of history and the archives of medical libraries.

We however contend that when this scenario shall finally come, one of the most profound effects of HIV/AIDS will be the glaring faces of orphans and other children whose lives have been shattered by the epidemic. To these outcomes of the epidemic, society shall still be called upon to offer comprehensive guidance, care and support.

LECDEN-KENYA has been collaborating with the following institutions and individuals. Here are the institutions we have as partners in this work of helping others live better lives.

 -   Friends and wellwishers in the USA
 -   Eyes On Nature Expeditions - a tour firm
     based in  Nairobi, Kenya
      (eyesonnatureexpeditions.com)
 -   The Kenya Aids NGOs Consortium (KANCO)
  -  AIDS Portal (A UK-Based HIV/AIDS NGO)
  -  Feed the Children (FTC) Dagoretti
 

LECDEN-KENYA WISH LIST

Examples of Financial Support Needed:*

1)Yearly primary school fees for one child, US$200;

2)Yearly secondary school fees for one child, US$300;

3)Yearly salary for one teacher, US$2,000;

4)Lunch for one child for 6 months, US$300;

5)Yearly transportation cost for one child to secondary school, US$100;

6)Feeding an entire family for one month, US$150;

7)Housing rent for a family for one month,US$50;

8)Micro-loan per woman to start small push-cart or sidewalk business, US$100;

9)Starting a new youth center, US$5,000;

10)Yearly sponsorship for a complete HIV/AIDS clinic (staff, medication, etc) US$15,000;

11) Opening a new HIV/AIDS centre in urban area, US$65,000 (Nairobi, Kiambiu slum, Kibera Line Saba)

12) Opening a Youth Centre in Urban area, US$ 65,000 (Nairobi, Kiambiu and Kibera slums)

13) Opening a new HIV/AIDS center in the rural area, US$35,000 (Siaya District, Homa Bay, Makueni, Machakos)

14) Opening a Youth Centre in Rural Area US$ 38,000 (Siaya District, Homa Bay, Makueni, Machakos

15) Community Motorvehicle/van (Second Hand/New) for emergency (For our sick beneficiaries/patients and orphans)

HOW CAN I DONATE TO LECDEN-KENYA?
Donations can be made in the following ways:
1. Donations-in-Kind, e.g., clothing, toys, medical supplies, books, school supplies, etc.
2. Sponsorship of a Family--$150.00 per month will feed an average LECDEN-KENYA Family;
3. Volunteer Worker: LECDEN-KENYA can always use volunteers to teach in the school, tutor children, work in the counseling centers or with medical staff, etc.
4. Monetary

For sending donations or for more information, please contact:
Direct Mailing Address:
Leo Community Development Network (LECDEN-KENYA)
P.O. Box 79456-00200 City Square
Nairobi, Kenya
Tel: +254-722-761-587 or +254-734-939308 

EXAMPLES OF GIFTS-IN-KIND NEEDED (New or Used)
1) Sanitary Pads
2)Shoes, sweaters, shirts, dress, underwear, etc
3)Over-the-Counter medical supplies;
4)Blankets and Bed Linens;
5)Toys (any kind);
6)Books(Children’s books or any kind);
7)Typewriters (manual or electric);
8)Computers and printers;
9)Stationary, notebooks, pencils, etc.
10)Non-perishable food (canned goods);
11)Families who will adopt and love a child!

LINKS & RESOURCES

Rare Treatment Is Reported to Cure AIDS Patient
 www.nytimes.com
 

These sites offer additional information on various aspects of HIV/AIDS. We present these sites as a resource only; the American Foundation for Children with AIDS has no control over the content of these sites.
 

African Network for the Care of Children With HIV/AIDS (ANNECA): www.anneca.org
ANECCA brings together clinicians and social scientists committed to finding ways of improving the quality of clinical and non-clinical care of children affected by HIV/AIDS in the Africa region. The Network efforts are targeted at tapping into existing local resources to increase access to, and improving the quality of, care provided to HIV-affected children in Africa.


AIDS info: www.aidsinfo.nih.gov
A service of the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services (DHHS), AIDSinfo is co-sponsored by the National Library of Medicine and other federal agencies. This site provides information on HIV/AIDS clinical trials and treatment and merges two previous DHHS projects: The AIDS Clinical Trials Information Service (ACTIS) and the HIV/AIDS Treatment Information Service (ATIS). AIDSinfo offers the latest federally approved information on HIV/AIDS clinical research, treatment and prevention, and medical practice guidelines for health care providers, researchers, and HIV/AIDS patients, families, and friends.


AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition (AVAC): www.avac.org
The AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition (AVAC) is a community- and consumer-based organization that was founded in December 1995 to accelerate the ethical development and global delivery of vaccines against HIV/AIDS. It provides independent analysis, policy advocacy, public education and mobilization to enhance AIDS vaccine research and development.


AIDS Education Global Information System (AEGIS): www.aegis.com
AEGIS has comprehensive news reporting and numerous online documents about HIV/AIDS, including information about avoiding HIV infection, exposure issues, treatment issues, living with HIV/AIDS, and special populations. Of note are the site's law library and reference sections, including an AIDS historical timeline dating back to 1926.


American Foundation for AIDS Research (amFAR): www.amfar.org
amFAR provides formal requests for proposal (RFP) for targeted and general grants in HIV/AIDS research. The organization has U.S.-based programs in basic and clinical research and policy and prevention, as well as limited support for international programs.
 

Avert: www.avert.org
AVERT is an international HIV and AIDS charity based in the UK, working to AVERT HIV and AIDS worldwide. AVERT has HIV and AIDS projects in countries where there is a particularly high rate of infection, such as South Africa, or where there is a rapidly increasing rate of infection such as in India.
 

Axios: www.axiosint.com
The Axios Foundation, Inc., is a non-profit corporation dedicated to raising funds to improve health care and impoverished conditions for communities in developing countries. Axios's "Access to Care" initiative provides guidance for obtaining HIV rapid tests from Abbott Laboratories and nevirapine donations for prevention of HIV transmission from mothers to infants from Boehringer-Ingelheim.

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