INTERFAITH INITIATIVES: NEWS FROM WCRP-KENYA Collaboration by Faith Communities in the Struggle against HIV/AIDS
Introduction
Interfaith collaboration has had a long history in Kenya. It started during the colonial era when individuals of various racial, ethnic, cultural and religious backgrounds banded together in the struggle for independence. It continued after independence, especially during times of crises. One instance of this is when, during the time of Amin in Uganda, a group of Asians who, in the early 1970s had been expelled from Uganda, got stranded at the Nairobi train station. These were Indian passport holders and had not yet found a place of temporary asylum. A member of the Sikh community, Mr. T.S. Nandhra, spoke with the then General Secretary of the National Council of Churches, Mr. John Kamau, who intervened with President Jomo Kenyatta so that the Asians would be allowed to leave the train station for some days and could be cared for by the Hindu community.
Mr. Nandhra had got to know Mr. Kamau at an interfaith committee of the NCCK.
Mr. Nandhra later became an international President of the World Conference on Religion and Peace (WCRP). WCRP is the largest coalition of religious communities bringing together all the major faiths in the world. WCRP believes in collaborative action of religious leaders for solving the world’s problems. The organization registered a local chapter in Nairobi in 1983 and held its 4th Assembly in Nairobi in 1984. Since 2001, WCRP has been involved in the Hope for African Children Initiative (HACI) program aimed at prevention of the further spread of HIV and alleviating the socio-economic impacts of AIDS on Africa’s children.
WCRP-Kenya has been very much involved in the HIV/AIDS and Children initiative ever since a continent-wide meeting on the subject for African religious leaders was held in Nairobi in June 2002. The WCRP-Kenya Task Force on this initiative will be publicizing its work in WAJIBU on a regular basis, beginning with this issue.
Two important reports
The WCRP Kenya Task Force on HIV/AIDS and Children is due to publish two important reports that mark a milestone in its work.
The first, Haven for children: a study of FBO responses to orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs), is a report of a study undertaken in the last quarter of 2002 in sixteen districts in Kenya. The study, the first of its kind in the country came up with interesting revelations into the structure, operations and competencies of congregational responses to the twin challenges of HIV/AIDS and orphans and vulnerable children.
The study found that many congregational responses had strong capacities in terms of governance, human resource, financial systems and community participation, factors that were hitherto thought lacking. The lack of capacities in these areas had dissuaded many local and international support agencies from seriously engaging faith-based organisations and especially congregations. The latter were adjudged to lack the necessary skills to carry out development work and to account for funds granted to them.
The study also found that many of the congregational responses were started out of acute need, with a majority being started by religious leaders. Another factor that ensured success and sustainability of the activities by the congregations was that they usually used volunteers, most of them women, in their work. These volunteers were highly committed to their work. It was a fact, though, that many lacked technical skills, especially in home-based care and counselling.
In recognition of the study finding, the WCRP Kenya Task Force on HIV/AIDS and Children realigned its program so as to target congregations. It has also started a home-based care and counselling training program aimed at raising the skills of the volunteers. The program has begun at the level of the religious coordinating bodies (RCBs), such as NCCK, SUPKEM and OAIC (Organisation of African Instituted Churches.) This training will eventually reach the individual congregations.
The second publication, Mobilising faith communities to tackle HIV/AIDS, is a report of activities undertaken by the Task Force in 2003/2004 with assistance from the Hope for African Children Initiative (HACI). This initiative is a partnership by five major international organisations, WCRP, Plan, Save the Children, CARE, Society for Women and AIDS in Kenya (SWAK) and World Vision. The organisations came together in 2001 to seek ways of scaling up community initiatives that assist OVCs. WCRP Kenya has been implementing OVC support activities within the HACI partnership during the last two and half years. This report covers the activities in the first fifteen months.
The report has three main sections detailing the activities. The sections are:
· Congregational Support
· RCB Capacity Building
· Advocacy
Under congregational support the report examines the process of selecting the congregations to be assisted, the process of participatory appraisal of the congregational needs and the training of congregational leaders who are to receive the grants.
After receipt of the grants, the process of monitoring the projects is documented and the final learning workshop for the grantees is also analysed. The report notes that under the congregational support projects, WCRP Kenya worked with 49 congregations and 12 faith-based community organisations scattered in 34 districts in all provinces in the country.
With these groups WCRP Kenya was able to reach 7,225 orphans and vulnerable children with much needed assistance. Some of the assistance met immediate material needs like uniforms and other school equipment to enable the children access to the free primary education. Food, medicine, mosquito nets and essential needs of the children were also provided. A large part of the funds were used to assist families develop coping mechanisms. This included assisting them in the purchase of agricultural inputs and, in many cases, helping them to start income generating activities.
The success of the congregational support program was attributed to a large extent to the close monitoring of the groups that received funding. The monitoring process was a shared responsibility between the religious coordinating body (RCB) that nominated the group for funding and the WCRP-Kenya Secretariat.
Each project was visited once before implementation and at least three times during the implementation period with some groups, especially the ones recently constituted, receiving more visits. The project managers were only required to write short activity reports at the end of each phase of implementation. In this way they were not daunted by the need to write a voluminous report at the end of the funding cycle. WCRP-Kenya is committed to pursuing these projects to evaluate impacts and outcomes in the medium and long terms.
The RCB Capacity Building aspect is a module developed to respond to the gaps noted in the FBO Responses study. The projects addressed the three areas where skills are required, namely, (1) Home Based care, (2) Counselling and (3) Project Management.
The program started with the project management skills training. This was integrated with training in the Circle of Hope conceptual model that WCRP Kenya has adopted, in line with its HACI partners as the best model for reaching OVCs.
The other two areas of home-based care and counselling were taken together in a process that started with this phase and is to be continued in subsequent periods. The aim of the project is to start with a basic training course. Successful and enthusiastic participants in the basic course would be invited for a Training of Trainers course and a select few from the trainers would be developed to become tutors.
In the first phase, the first group of 34 persons completed the basic course in home-based care and peer counselling. Of these, 25 will be called in the next phase for the training of trainers course.
The last aspect of the program is advocacy. This part of the program was underpinned by two important events. The first was the Africa Religious Leaders Assembly on HIV/AIDS and Children convened by WCRP in June 2002 in Nairobi. Pre-eminent African religious leaders from the continent attended this conference. These leaders committed themselves to fight for the rights and for the well being of the African children and their care-givers burdened by the heavy yoke of HIV/AIDS.
Following this assembly, WCRP-Kenya convened a meeting of senior Kenyan religious leaders at Brackenhurst, Limuru from 16–20th December 2002 from all parts of the country. This meeting was called to chart the way forward for the country in view of the continental commitment. The WCRP-Kenya conference brought together 56 senior religious leaders who came up with a joint declaration and plan of action.
As part of the process, the religious leaders asked WCRP-Kenya to hold similar gatherings at regional levels in order to sensitise and involve grassroots religious leaders on the OVC crisis in the country. Subsequently, and as covered in the report, WCRP Kenya held three highly successful regional religious meetings where the issue of HIV/AIDS and children was vigorously debated. Definitive local action plans were drawn up and coordination mechanisms were developed to ensure that the particular needs for each area were addressed. The whole process ensured that religious leaders from the grassroots to the top are alive and sensitised to the needs of the OVCs in the country.
Other parts of the WCRP Kenya advocacy program involved review of the HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Bill 2002 that was prepared and later published by the Attorney General (AG) to regulate matters on the HIV/AIDS in the country. Two seminars were held to review the Bill, following which a petition to address the concerns of the faith communities was drawn up. The petition has been presented to the AG and to all members of Parliament. These two actions were part of a Plan of Action that will ensure that changes are made to the Bill before it becomes law. Among the concerns of the religious leaders was the restriction of counselling only to those persons approved by the Minister of Health. That provision would exclude religious leaders and would prevent them from offering hope and encouragement to members of their flock in the form of spiritual counselling, a task for which they are eminently qualified.
Another concern raised included classifying breast milk as tissue and then putting impossible restrictions on tissue donation; this would restrict the right of a mother to breast feed her child. Also found questionable was the use of language that could loosely be interpreted to mean that same sex persons could be partners.
The work of WCRP-Kenya in these three area and the successes so far scored are a firm foundation for mobilizing the unique strengths and capacities of faith communities to effectively respond to the many challenges caused by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the OVC crisis being among the most urgent and heart-breaking of these challenges.