THE PROJECT

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.