Community Health Workers of Kawangware Community Leaders & History:
In one of Nairobi’s largest slums, five neighbors answered a bulletin posted at their church calling for community volunteers to assist the sick. Before becoming Community Health Workers (CHWs), they would undergo extensive interviews with a local clinic, run by an international charity and 26 weeks of intensive training. The CHWs of Kawangware, began as a group of five individuals in 2001, each volunteering through the local church parish. Today, four of the five individuals remain in service (one member moved out of town with her family), even though the original clinic they volunteer for has changed hands. Many of the clinicians, development workers, priests and other “professionals” who are posted in the slum to bring aid and comfort have moved on. The CHWs remain and continue to care for their neighbors. The slum is their community and they intend to bring comfort and dignity to the people there.
Kawangware, like most slums in and around Nairobi, is rife with disease and meager in resources like running water, sanitation, and luxuries like electricity. HIV/AIDS has hit the community hard, creating a nightmare for the afflicted and exponentially exacerbating the affect of opportunistic, communicable diseases like tuberculosis, community acquired pneumonia and colds and flus in the densely packed neighborhoods. The people in Kawangware weave an array cultures from Kenya’s rural areas and bordering countries into a unique tapestry of African multi culturalism, as people from around the region move to the community looking for work in the relative economic boom of “industrialized” Nairobi. “Home” in Kawangware for a family of 5 down on their luck, might typically be a one room rental, 9’ft x 12‘ft corrugated tin ranch style duplex; NO running water, NO plumbing, NO personal latrine, NO electricity, or privacy. This is the world the CHW’s walk through and call home.
In one of Nairobi’s largest slums, five neighbors answered a bulletin posted at their church calling for community volunteers to assist the sick. Before becoming Community Health Workers (CHWs), they would undergo extensive interviews with a local clinic, run by an international charity and 26 weeks of intensive training. The CHWs of Kawangware, began as a group of five individuals in 2001, each volunteering through the local church parish. Today, four of the five individuals remain in service (one member moved out of town with her family), even though the original clinic they volunteer for has changed hands. Many of the clinicians, development workers, priests and other “professionals” who are posted in the slum to bring aid and comfort have moved on. The CHWs remain and continue to care for their neighbors. The slum is their community and they intend to bring comfort and dignity to the people there.
Kawangware, like most slums in and around Nairobi, is rife with disease and meager in resources like running water, sanitation, and luxuries like electricity. HIV/AIDS has hit the community hard, creating a nightmare for the afflicted and exponentially exacerbating the affect of opportunistic, communicable diseases like tuberculosis, community acquired pneumonia and colds and flus in the densely packed neighborhoods. The people in Kawangware weave an array cultures from Kenya’s rural areas and bordering countries into a unique tapestry of African multi culturalism, as people from around the region move to the community looking for work in the relative economic boom of “industrialized” Nairobi. “Home” in Kawangware for a family of 5 down on their luck, might typically be a one room rental, 9’ft x 12‘ft corrugated tin ranch style duplex; NO running water, NO plumbing, NO personal latrine, NO electricity, or privacy. This is the world the CHW’s walk through and call home.