Georgina Nakitari of Kenya is a valued member of the Vital Voices network, most recently participating in Rising Voices: Young Kenyan Women’s Leadership and Communications Training. Living as an HIV positive woman, Georgina was profiled by The Standard as a true crusader who has “taken a brave step by coming out in public about her status and reaching out to other infected women.” Georgina works as a social worker and supervisor at the Coptic Hope Center, where she is in charge of the adult clinic. Her inspiring story is featured in this article, “Crusader larger than AIDS virus,” The Standard.

On December 1, as the international community commemorates World AIDS Day, we turn our attention to the considerable impact that AIDS has on women and girls worldwide. This year, the theme of World AIDS Day is “Universal Access and Human Rights.” In a statement released by UNIFEM Executive Director Ines Alberdi, a recent report from the World Health Organization is cited in which research indicates “AIDS is the leading killer of women of reproductive age in poor and middle-income countries.” Alberdi goes on to say, “This is unacceptable at a time when HIV treatment is available.”

In a call for improved, targeted actions, Alberdi says that a health sector approach must be compounded by “an equally rigorous and well-financed effort to address the root causes of HIV…that lie within social, economic and political structures.” To this end, research must lend itself to a focus on gender and the different ways that AIDS affects men and women. Advancing gender equality is a central component of AIDS eradication efforts, says Alberdi:

“We all know that women’s vulnerability to HIV is closely connected to gender discrimination and the continued violation of women’s rights…HIV and AIDS and persistent gender inequality are mutually reinforcing crises; we must tackle them together to achieve lasting change.”

Women’s Rights Are at the Core of Addressing the AIDS Pandemic -UNIFEM

In the Radhapuram village in India, twenty HIV-positive women are securing self-sufficiency for the first time through a new farming cooperative.

The “We-Farm, Radhapuram” project is an initiative of the Suzlon Foundation (SF), a wind power company dedicated to social responsibility. In creating the first project of its kind in India, SF partnered with UNIFEM (United Nations Development Fund for Women) and the National Positive Women’s Network (PWN+), an organization that strengthens the resources for HIV-positive women.

The women were given user rights to 46 acres of land including 152 coconut trees and a farmhouse. In August, the women harvested 1,700 coconuts and were able to put their earnings into a collective bank account. SF also provided the women with two professional farmers to teach them skills, like how to make organic fertilizer.

One farmer told IPS, “For the first time in our lives, we got an opportunity to mingle with other people. Before this, we had a huge inferiority complex. But now, when we see men’s skepticism about our ability to till the land, it gives us more incentive to do well.”

RIGHTS-INDIA: HIV-Positive Women Get User Rights to Till Land- IPS

In 1990, Veronica Khosa was a nurse to HIV/AIDS patients in South Africa, overwhelmed by a need that she was not equipped to attend to. Too many were without care, slipping through unnoticed by an ineffective healthcare system. This reality was unacceptable to Khosa, who decided to innovate an inadequate process and reorient care around a patient and the involvement of their family through a home-based nursing model.

By engaging the family and friends of an HIV/AIDS patient, Khosa teaches loved ones to care for the ill and even assist in their rehabilitation. Her work involves an entire community in the provision of care, challenging common conceptions that would relegate patients to overcrowded hospitals and clinical environments. Khosa has touched the lives of thousands of chronically and terminally ill patients in South Africa’s Gauteng province, even influencing regional policy within her nation; the Gauteng provincial government has adopted and implemented Khosa’s model of home-based care. Recognized nationally and even internationally, by bodies such as the World Health Organization, Khosa has been an Ashoka Fellow since 2000.

Veronica Khosa carries out her work with the belief that “everyone is qualified to care for others,” as Ashoka describes. It is this belief that has innovated healthcare in her region, and led Khosa to affect positive change for thousands.

Veronica Khosa-Ashoka

Southern Africa HIV/AIDS Information Dissemination Services (SAFAIDS) recently published a report analyzing the relationship between culture, women’s rights and HIV/AIDS in Africa, finding that the epidemic is impacting significantly more women than men on the continent. Findings indicate that 60 percent of HIV positive adults in Africa are women, a fact largely attributed to “women’s lower socio-economic, political and cultural status,” as AllAfrica news reports.

The correlation between an absence of women’s rights and the prevalence of HIV/AIDS has been widely acknowledged, yet the report maintains that little has been done to address the direct causation of the two issues. In an effort to create culturally relevant materials, SAFAIDS has distributed a casebook documenting the best practices of six Zimbabwean communities, intending to “help mitigate the HIV crisis through a cultural and gender perspective.”

There is a call for a concerted effort of gender-focused policies to address HIV/AIDS and there is much work to be done, as noted in the SAFAIDS report:

“While it is universally understood and accepted that traditional and cultural ideologies and practices that promote male dominance and the marginalization of women are key drivers of the epidemic in Africa, not much is known about how to effectively address those practices in a way that will increase gender equality and reduce vulnerability to HIV for African women.”

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UNIFEM and the European Commission (EC) are joining in an effort to advance the third millennium development goal, namely the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women.  In a three-year program to be implemented in Rwanda, Kenya, Jamaica, Papua New Guinea and Cambodia, the agencies will “focus on promoting the leadership of HIV-positive women’s groups and gender equality advocates, to ensure that gender equality priorities are identified, realized and budgeted in national HIV and AIDS responses,” as UNIFEM reports.

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The Canadian Press reports:

DAVOS, Switzerland — There is a simple way to help rejuvenate many of the world’s economies: invest in the education of girls and make sure they don’t become victims of the global financial meltdown, Nike’s chief executive, the head of UNICEF and Melinda Gates agreed Saturday.

For the first time, the World Economic Forum devoted one of its marquee sessions to the impact of educating girls in developing countries, an event four years in the planning that ended up coinciding with the world’s worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

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Related post:
A Different Kind of Davos - Huffington Post

Today was the corporate launch of the Partnership for an HIV FREE GENERATION initiative in Kenya. The day started with the Roundtable—what we have been preparing for all week. The eight girls mentioned in my previous blog, plus two more that joined us the last day, had 2-3 minutes to tell their story. Those in attendance were the U.S. Ambassador to Kenya Michael Ranneberger, Buck Buckingham, head of PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), Ian Kirumba, head of the HIV Free Generation initiative in Kenya, and representatives of other corporate partners (such as Warner Bros. and Coca-Cola) and other NGOs.

The girls were so excited ahead of time and their energy was quite high. I could tell they were nervous, but also positively excited. We were there at least an hour before they had to speak, so we had time to kill. We kept them busy talking, laughing, taking pictures…anything but obsessing about their presentations. Continue Reading »

Other than logistical things with the upcoming training, I had the day off. I went to church with my friend Eva. Going to worship services in different countries is one of the greatest cultural things one can do when visiting another country, in my opinion. Eva’s church is a series of HUGE tents and there are three different simultaneous services—one for adults, one for youth and one for children. The service was almost 3 hours long, but extremely interesting. Next Sunday Eva’s choir does a holiday presentation so I’m really looking forward to that.

Some of us did an afternoon shopping trip to the Masai Market. A woman I purchased items from in August 2007 saw me and came up to me. I was so surprised that she remembered me. I was looking for her as well. You can check out my website at www.UpFromTheDust.com in the next couple of weeks and we’ll highlight the “bone jewelry” that I buy from her. It sold out quickly the last time I got it! Continue Reading »

I have come to strongly believe that opportunities and preparedness collide ever so often to create the thing people call LUCK!

In 2006, I was selected to represent Kenya on the Fortune/ State Department Global Women’s Mentoring Partnership. The experience was exactly what I needed to turn my life around and help many other women and girls in my country.

I am slowly beginning to see why this opportunity came my way.  At the time, however, no one could ever have convinced me of all the great things have happened as a result.
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