Organization name:Leo community development network-Kenya(Lecden-Kenya)-
http://www.lecdenkenya.com
Job Description:
The activities are optional for the volunteers and it all depends on line of specialization.Our staff will meet volunteers at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport upon full flight details confirmation via email.Volunteers will be accompanied by the staff after three days orientation in Nairobi /Kogelo village in Siaya district in western kenya.
Assisting the children {orphans} on remedial classes hosted in our daycare and nearby school, Teaching l in any subject of interest or choice by the volunteer{foreign language, Mathematics, English, Geography, Physics etc},
Home visits on different homes within the slum/ village to understand the factors that contribute to vulnerable children.
Participate in farming activities including sharing ideas on improved farming practices to ensure food production, Health Education especially for the HIV/AIDS program, counseling and awareness activities within the community.
Advocates and lobbying for children rights through activities within the community, Animation activities, Updating childrens data information, Sporting activities that help in physical and emotional development, Environmental activities like tree planting and nursery tree preparations together with the children.
Duties and Responsibilities of Volunteers:
Restore a building (painting)
●Build a house for orphaned Children
●Work with displaced people
●Build a children’s playground
●Assist with holidays and camps for young people
●Carry out renovation work at a school
●Help educate people about farming
●Work in a nature and wild life reserve
●Teach in a school
●Organise arts activities for children
●Work at a local hospital
●Help at an orphanage caring for babies
●Work in a remote village educating people about health - AIDS
● Work with a project helping children from the streets
●Work with a local Church
●Work with a young offenders home
●Work with a local women development project
Project overview:
Counseling
“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.
Our staff will meet volunteers at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport upon full flight details confirmation via email.Volunteers will be accompanied by the staff after then orientation in Nairobi/Kogelo village in western kenya.
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.
Day Care /Feeding Center
LECDEN-KENYA runs a daycare in the slum of Kiambiu, known as Riverside Daycare Centre. Here we care for pre-school going children and also cater for their physical needs, i.e. clothing, food and schooling materials. The kids are fed here at least twice a day. This has been possible through the support of our friends and well-wishers in USA.
At our Day Care centre, we have been providing lunch-hour meal to an average of 200 orphans every day from Monday to Friday. Most of the children who feed at the centre are orphans between the ages of 5 years to 15 years though there are few cases of orphans aged between 15 years and 18 years, especially those whom we have supported to undertake vocational training courses in and around Kiambiu, Kibera Line Saba and Siaya.
Most of these children are total orphans living with extended family relatives while others come from families where parent(s) is(are) bedridden with AIDS-related complications. This latter group also exhibits great emotional trauma as a result of having to see their parents go through episodes of acute sicknesses, hospitalization and eventually deaths. To all these orphans, counseling is a critical aspect of care which they require.
Our Kiambiu, Kibera Line Saba, and Siaya Feeding centers feeding is structured to reflect the diverse nutritional needs of children generally and for those living with HIV infection specifically. The diet is structured to conform to the basic balanced diet policy, to provide nourishment and support livelihoods for the children
Our Challenges
- Lack of Technical Support and capacity
building for our members
- Lack of resources to empower the
most vulnerable through sustainable
projects.
- Lack of donor funding
Our Vision
(LECDEN-KENYA) Envisions " A just society in which human dignity is upheld and sustainably developed"
Our Mission
To work towards initiating sustainable development programmes to improve the living standards of the poor rural and urban slum dwellers especially the very most vulnerable groups i.e children, girl child and women/widows (Affected or Infected with HIV/AIDS/Poverty)
We will introduce you to the real Africa settings over a period of time
Meet the people in their homes, eat their food, hear their music and listen to their stories.
Work with them; get a real feel for their culture. Watch wildlife in the national parks. Swim and sunbathe at beach resorts.
Our aim is to make your Volunteer holiday as convenient, relevant, interesting and exciting as possible for you plus the Local people.
Our Volunteer vacations give you a chance to use your work skills in the voluntary sector to promote intercultural learning and improve the lives of the people you meet.
Finally, volunteer Vacations offer you a chance to meet like minded people and to make new friends not only among the local people but also people from around the World and you get to see the real Africa
Promise an educational presentation:
Promising to speak to groups or show pictures when you return home, can be great way to secure funding from religious organizations, civic groups, alumni associations and educational institutions. Remember, often the prime motivation for giving is how it makes the giver feel, not how it makes the receiver feel. Hopefully, your supporters will feel good each time they look at your picture or receive an update from you.
These programs allow our guests exclusive entry onto tribal lands while giving local people local control over the way Volunteer vacation is introduced and the way African cultures . Our programs open up rare opportunities for in-depth exchanges between western culture and traditional.
How to Apply:
http://www.lecdenkenya.com/contact.htmhttp://www.eyesonnatureexpeditions.com/philanthropy.htmhttp://www.eyesonnatureexpeditions.com/kenyasafaris/volunteer.htmhttp://www.eyesonnatureexpeditions.com/kenyasafaris/fundr.htmhttp://www.eyesonnatureexpeditions.com/kenyasafaris/volunteer2.htm
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