The project is divided into four components:

1. HIV/Aids clinic at the Andersen Medical Centre
2. Mobile clinics
3. Orphanage for children whose parents have died of AIDs
4. Nutritional programme

1. HIV/Aids clinic

The clinic was built with the financial assistance of the German Development Bank (DEG). The following activities take place:

• Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) for HIV and AIDs
• Provision of information on HIV and AIDs to individuals
• Giving lessons on HIV/Aids
• Treating AIDs patients with ART (Anti Retroviral Therapy)
• Monitoring of HIV positive patients using a CD4 cel counter

2 Mobile Clinics

The mobile clinics regularly visit the villages, goverment farms and schools in the surrounding area. They raise awareness of the causes and effects of HIV infection, carry out HIV testing and, if necessary, refer HIV infected patients to the AIDs clinic for further tests and treatment (x-rays, blood tests, CD4).

There are about 30 locations in Kenya and Uganda that are visited by 4 team members. The pick up truck is loaded with a generator, TV video, tables, chairs, testing materials and the necessary paperwork. Each visit takes around 4 hours, in which they are able to test around 150 people. Demand for these visits is very high.

3 Orphanage

Because AIDs has grown to epidemic proportions in this area of Africa, many children have already lost their parents. Other family members take the children into their own care, but the sheer number of orphans make this sometimes impossible. The community requested help for the most desperate cases, so we set up an orphanage in 2008. The orphanage, which could not have been possible without sponsors from Australia and funds from the German Development Bank, looks after 17 children and has two 'mothers'. In the future we will be able to take up to 32 childen.

The children are selected by the village elders and a local committee, on the grounds of pre-establshed criteria.They will attend the farm school and will live with us until they have completed their vocational education and are able to stand on their own two feet - about 20 years old.

4 Nutritional programme

The most important aspect of health care for AIDs patients is nutrition. The medication cannot work if the body cannot build up strength with adequate feeding. A nutritional programme has therefore been set up which teaches patients about a suitable diet for a weakened immune system. The AIDs patients are provided with a small garden where they can grow the right sort of fruit and vegetables, and lessons are given on natural means of combating the disease.

Francis Mukoya is in charge of all these Aids programmes. He is very focussed and his enthousiasm is contagious. Because of him, AIDs is no longer a taboo subject in this part of Africa.

Because the number of patients using these programmes is steadily growing, more money is needed to keep them running. Luckily, the medicines are provided by the government, but funds are also needed to:

• provide diesel for the mobile clinics
• look after the poorest patients
• buy materials zuch as seeds and fertiliser for the nutritional programme
• hiring trainers and providing courses
• staff training
• running the orphanage