By Hannah Bain | CFK Communications Manager
Though many countries and communities around the world are beginning to ease COVID-19 restrictions, residents of informal settlements continue to suffer disproportionately from the indirect effects of the pandemic.
Since beginning COVID-19 vaccine distribution in October 2021, our Tabitha Medical Clinic has administered over 4,000 jabs, reaching community members who may have otherwise been unable to access these critical vaccines. We also continued mitigating COVID-19 at the community level, training 400 Community Health Volunteers (CHVs) last year across two counties to promote positive health behaviors throughout informal settlements.
Quinter Obat, a CHV since 2018, has been selling handmade soap and training other CHVs and women in Kibera to make their own soap. Since early 2020, Quinter has trained 60 women in soap making, helping them stay safe and providing them a way to earn money throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
“My biggest dream is to see a community with healthy people, cleanliness, and women who are willing and able to earn money for themselves and their families,” Quinter said. “When I first came to CFK, I didn’t have any skills, but now I am somewhere, and that is because of CFK. I have benefitted by gaining skills, being able to train other CHVs and women in my community, and earning a stipend. I am really grateful for what CFK has done here in Kibera because it is amazing.”
In addition to serving our community, we have continued to expand our impact by sharing best practices with additional counties and national and international media. Over the last year, our COVID-19 response has been highlighted by Voice of America, STAT, Science News, NTV, CTV, KirkTV, ZDF, and KBC Channel 1. Additionally, our Executive Director, Hillary Omala, was recently selected to join the writing committee of Nakuru County’s 2022-2026 Community Health Services strategy alongside the County’s Community Health Department, USAID, and the Financing Alliance for Health.
Furthermore, we are working to identify and mitigate the negative economic impacts of COVID-19 in our community. We recently partnered with faculty at Kenyatta University to publish a journal article titled “The Impact of Covid-19 on the Wellbeing of School-Going Children in Kibra Slum, Nairobi, Kenya.” Findings demonstrated that approximately 70% of parents in Kibera completely or partially lost their income since the start of the pandemic and had to reduce the number of meals they fed to their children. Additionally, 90% of parents reported not being able to afford the learning materials their children needed for school.
In response to these findings, we have begun expanding our support for individual and household economic strengthening. Last year alone, we helped prepare 388 youth for an increasingly competitive workplace through vocational skills and financial literacy training, and we hope to reach more this year.
At the start of this year, we changed our name from Carolina for Kibera (CFK) to CFK Africa as a signal of our growth to additional informal settlements in Nairobi County and across seven new counties in Kenya. Through integrated primary health care services, education and youth leadership initiatives, and economic development programming, we expect to directly impact an additional 1.5 million people living in some of Kenya’s most challenging environments over the next five years. With a focus on health systems strengthening and building economic resilience, we will ensure that informal settlements are well-equipped to identify, mitigate, and respond to future public health crises such as COVID-19.
Thank you for being part of this important work. Forward together.
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