Upendo Village, NFP is a project
designed to respond at the local level to the needs of women, men and
their children living with HIV/AIDS. The project surrounds them with
resources and support to improve their health, restore their
self-respect, honor their dignity and increase their lifespan. Upendo
Village is not a hospice program where death is the final outcome. We
are providing hope, love, services and resources so that families can be
strengthened and can plan for their future.
KEY SERVICES
Temporary
Shelter—Provides shelter to needy clients offering
hospitality and counseling. Some requiring more intensive interventions
may stay for up to several weeks. Others are provided with nutritious
hot meals and rest while in transit for services.
Basic
Health Care—Addresses clients' urgent medical needs,
including on site medical care by nursing staff. Our clinic provides
access to prescription drugs and to antiretroviral medications,
treatment of opportunistic infections, skin rashes, malaria and other
complications related to AIDS.
Home
Based Care (HBC)—Provides counseling, nutritional
supplementation and medicine to our clients at home, their families and
caregivers. These clients are suffering from HIV/AIDS. Most of them
are between the ages of 15-49. Upendo Village also trains volunteers as
community healthcare workers to compliment our small full-time staff.
Voluntary
Counseling and Testing (VCT) Program—Offers counseling and
HIV testing to people who want to be know their status. This is an
important component for prevention as well as early treatment
interventions.
AIDS
Education and Vocational Training—Seeks to dispel myths about
HIV/AIDS, helps families and communities to cope with the pandemic, and
teaches skills for self-sufficiency.
Support
Group—Offers emotional and social support for clients and
caregivers, as well as a framework for personal transformation and the
reconstruction of lifestyles. We also offer children’s support groups,
the “kids’ clubs”, to help them deal with their unique issues.
Microeconomic
Programs—Provides education and resources for economic
self-sufficiency to clients who have regained their health. They learn
beadwork, beekeeping, soap making, and the care and raising of dairy
goats and chickens.
Care and
Education Of AIDS Orphans—seeks to place orphans who have
lost their parents to AIDS with next of kin. Upendo Village offers
continued support and resources necessary for maintaining their health
and their formal education so that they can grow to become strong,
independent individuals and contributors to their communities.
Home
Improvement Program—identifies families who own homes that
are in desperate need of repair. Volunteer construction teams assist in
these repairs in order to reduce the incidence of opportunistic
infections related to poor housing conditions.