CULINKE fights poverty in all its forms, increasing sustainable economic growth and sustainable development. Sustainable development recognizes that the economy, society and the environment are interconnected and therefore requires balanced, integrated and sustainable decision making that considers the potential environmental, social and economic effects equally hence the integrated approach.

 

Owing to the multi-dimensional nature of poverty CULINKE has in the same vein adapted a sectorbroad approach and implements integrated activities and crosscutting programmes together with partners through our Partnership Approach to tackle poverty, its root causes and effects in line with the interconnectedness of the MDG objectives.

Our programmatic areas are a reflection of the linkages in the MDG objectives, and address the crosscutting effects of poverty in our project sites. Our core interventions are fundamental to each other and cannot be separated from the other if we are to put the communities we work with on a path to achieving sustainable development and livelihoods. This is in line with our integrated and multiple pathways approach.

 

 

Disease is one of the main reasons that stand in the way of the efforts of the people of developing countries trying to overcome poverty. Poverty accelerates the spread of disease and the spread of disease aggravates poverty, creating a vicious cycle. There is a fundamental relationship between health deficits and poverty. Poor people who lack education on health matters and have limited or no access to adequate nutrition, safe water and sanitation, are also not likely to have the purchasing power to buy basic health services.

 

That is why the Health and Medical Services Programme forms the very background of our interventions. It is not possible at all to make a difference in poor people’s lives without proper health facilities and services. People must be healthy to lead productive lives. The poor suffer from far higher levels of ill health, mortality, and malnutrition and their inadequate health is one of the factors keeping them poor or for their being poor in the first place. Appropriate Health and Medical Services make an important contribution to improving health conditions among the poor. Poverty is the most serious challenge that mankind currently faces and because it is the primary cause of hunger and disease, we take health improvements and poverty reduction as the starting point of our interventions.

 

Improvements in health would in turn translate into higher incomes, higher economic growth and reduced (and more sustainable) population growth. Unfortunately health care in Kenya and indeed in many parts of Africa is usually non existent or highly limited and under resourced. In this kind of environment it is impossible to achieve the MDGs by 2015. CULINKE is investing in human development; in nutrition, health (including reproductive health), education, water and sanitation—to foster a productive community that can participate effectively bettering their own lives.

Of great concern to CULINKE is the effect of HIV and AIDS on the productive life of the people. HIV and AIDS induces and deepens poverty. The scourge has emerged as a cause of poverty and is officially recognized as a threat to development in Kenya. This is the reason CULINKE has put it at the core of her poverty reduction agenda.

On another hand poverty and social inequalities are also seen as leading co-factors in HIV transmission. HIV eliminates people in the productive and reproductive stages of their lives thus obstructing production in all sectors of development. Poverty reduction cannot take place without a comprehensive and multi-sectoral approach

to the HIV and AIDS question. CULINKE therefore mainstreams HIV and AIDS prevention, care support and treatment in all her poverty reduction efforts.

Medical Tourism involves organising volunteer medical personnel and medical students on electives or those who have just finished college visiting select rural medical facilities to volunteer and gain experience in working under tropical conditions and treating tropical diseases. It is not in doubt that Western Kenyan rural communities suffer chronic physician shortages in primary prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. The unacceptably high mortality rates here can be improved by the control of communicable diseases and enhancing maternal and child health. HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis (TB), childhood infectious diseases, maternal and prenatal conditions and micronutrient deficiencies represent the main causes of avoidable deaths in Kenya’s rural areas. Medical tourism helps to bridge this gap by constantly availing medical personnel to volunteer their services as they learn and tour the countryside. Those welcome are volunteer doctors in rural health facilities, nursing students on transcultural medical studies and medical student doctors on learning experiences.

 

 Sourcing Medical Equipments for Under Resourced Rural Medical Facilities

For the medical personnel coming down to volunteer to find their work fulfilling, it is equally important to enhance the absorptive and institutional capacity of the facilities to be able to dispense drugs at the right time and at the right dose and with the necessary patient’s compliance. This we do by sourcing medical equipments and drugs for under-resourced medical facilities, locally and internationally.

 

Approximately a third of the rural population do not have adequate access to basic health care services. From 2009, we will be organising 2 free medical camps annually, one general and another with a special focus on children and the elderly, but will also offer referral services to other age – groups.

 

The Health Concern Partnership is an innovative direct participatory intervention meant to improve linkage with health service providers, the community including schools as part of the community and the government through the Ministry of Health. Through this collaborative initiative CULINKE responds to community-health related needs by improving identification of gaps and needs, and implements together with the community. We believe that multi-secorality and inclusiveness especially from the bottom-up are essential to delivering in the health sector.

Health for CULINKE is dependent upon many factors other than health care. These include access to safe water, food, sanitation and shelter.

 

The Health Concern Partnership was borne out of the devastating and all-encompassing effects of HIV and AIDS and other preventable diseases on the community. Health Concern Partnership therefore supports a holistic approach to community health and well-being, including a focus on health promotion, early intervention and primary care provision as well as high quality home based care. The Health Concern Partnership is the “software” CULINKE provides to the community alongside the “hardware” of medical supplies and equipments to complete the holistic approach to medical acre amongst the poor.

It is a community driven initiative and a CULINKE investment in Human Development Strategy that brings together health communications experts, community health workers, opinion leaders, inspirational speakers and government medical personnel in carrying health educational out outreach sessions. We believe the local community have a right to health information and education – Knowledge of prevention, treatment, health promoting behaviour, access to health services, e.g. informing them of availability of these services and their right to access them.

Topics covered range from general health and hygiene, family planning and water and sanitation. Youth in and out-of-school are also talked to about career achievement vis-á-vis their present life style and future expectation.

 

CULINKE takes cognisance of the synergies among various aspects of human development for instance improving health and education requires related interventions in schooling, family planning, health care, nutrition and water and sanitation. Also knowing that controlling diarrhoea and measles not only improves health, but also reduces malnutrition. Remember malnutrition severely undermines a person’s capacity to learn and grow, and so has important implications for education and the development of a productive community. Controlling diarrhoea is also affected by improved water and sanitation—as well as by hygienic behaviour fostered by education through opportunities offered by Health Concern Partnership.

 

i. A comprehensive preventive, care, support and treatment through referrals of the HIV and AIDS positive;

ii. Peer Education addressing early prevention of HIV and AIDS in schools;

iii. Health Talks/Education/information in schools, Faith Based Organisations and in communities e.g. market places and through radio stations and other media –Information Education Communication (IEC) especially on information about the main health problems and methods of prevention and control;

iv. Focussed Group Discussions with organised groups-women’s groups, slum groupings, youth-out of school, small business groups-merry-go-round or revolving fund members regarding discordant couples, Stigma reduction, and living positively amongst others.

CULINKE has a Speakers’ Bureau-a group of volunteers who give health talks on varying topics, some are living positive with the HIV virus.

 

 

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