Keep a Child Alive

More than 1000 families fed for an entire month.

What a beautiful way to start off 2012! With your generosity and support, Keep a Child Alive can feed more than 1000 families at Alive Medical Services in Uganda for an entire month. We are forever grateful to provide nutrition to those on AIDS medication to ensure successful treatment. THANK YOU!

Dr. Pasquine Ogunsanya, the Medical Director of Alive Medical Services has shared a message with us over Skype for all of you with her appreciation. You’ve made the difference between life and death by providing these patients and families with beans, rice, sugar and cooking oil.

Happy 2012 from Keep a Child Alive’s staff, and supported children & families.

A Miracle of what Nutrition can do for a poor HIV widow.

We have been meeting patients from Alive Medical Services, Uganda, these past few weeks to introduce to our KCA supporters who they are helping to feed with our Feed a Family campaign.

Supported by our treatment and nutrition programs, we’d love for you to meet Nanteza Maimuna and her 2 children Sseera Fatuma, 6 years old and Sowali Musisis, 4 years old. 

Maimuna lost her husband to HIV and she and both her children Fatuma and Sowali are HIV positive and all on ARVS at AMS and doing very well.

If not for the food that KCA provides, Maimuna and her kids would be dead now. You are making the difference between life and death for these patients at Alive by providing nutritional support!

 Maimuna came when she and the children had very low immunity and were very sick. They all had chest infections, skin infections and were all malnourished.

To see Maimuna and her kids so beautiful and healthy today, is a miracle of what nutrition can do for a very poor HIV widow.  Dr. Pasquine saw Maimuna and the children at their holiday meal this month and Maimuna looked like a queen in her fine clothes. She now has enough strength to dig and care for her family. 

To continue to provide this strength, care and nutrition for families like Maimuna’s please visit here to make a $26 donation to feed a family for one month in Uganda.

Janet and daughter Lucy at Alive Medical Services

Meet Janet, 36 years old and her daughter, Lucy who is 12 months old, both on AIDS treatment and receive the nutritional program at Alive Medical Services.

They are both newly diagnosed with HIV and mother Janet was referred to Alive Medical Services on the 14th September 2011 and is now in care. Janet, a peasant from the eastern part of Uganda, is a 4 hour drive from Kampala where Alive Medical Services is located to receive her medication. She has 5 children and has difficulty getting food. Her daughter Lucy whom she is carrying is one year old, HIV positive and severely malnourished. Lucy is currently undergoing nutritional rehabilitation. At 11 months she was weighing 3.8 kg.

You can help to continue to feed Mother Janet and Daughter Lucy with Keep a Child Alive’s Feed a Family Campaign which will provide a food parcel for one month for $26. Can you help feed Janet & Lucy for another month?

Give $26 here today.

Meet Teddy who is ALIVE because of AMS in Uganda

Teddy is a 65 year old widow who lives in the neighboring slums a few meters  away from Alive Medical Services (AMS) in Kampala, Uganda. She came to AMS in 2008 with full blown AIDS and is currently under comprehensive HIV and AIDS treatment and care.

Our nutrition program provides Teddy, one of many grandmothers, food for her and her 11 orphaned grandchildren. Not only is Teddy a widow at 65, but takes care of 11 orphaned grandchildren who live with her. Only one of her children is alive and he is sick with elephantiasis, with a big ulcer on the leg an unable to work.

Grandma Teddy came to AMS very sick with full blown AIDS in 2008 and was started on AIDS treatment. When staff of AMS visited her at home she was in a bad state with no food and no source of income and 11 little hungry mouths to feed.

She was then later started on nutrition support and this has literally saved them from starvation.

Teddy has no formal job but now with some food provided and with a little capital, she has been able to boil cassava and sell whenever she can.

This food parcel keeps Grandma Teddy and her 11 grandchildren ALIVE.

For $26, you can provide a food parcel to a family like Grandma Teddy’s for an entire month at Alive Medical Services - make that difference today and give the gift of life here.

Julie’s INSPIRE Paintings to benefit Keep a Child Alive!

Julie Weaverling, chose to support Keep a Child Alive’s work through her creative passion. Julie creates contemporary paintings and mixed media pieces using encaustic, oil & wax and acrylic paint as well as Joomchi, a Korean art form.  Beginning with a thought or idea, the artist’s inspirations are endless.  Generally abstract, Julie’s work includes 2D works and installation.

An award winning artist, Julie’s paintings are exhibited nationally. Julie created 6 special pieces from her Inspire series and 25% of the sales from this series will be donated to Keep a Child Alive.

Visit: www.julieweaverling.com to view Julie’s work and click here to order one of her pieces to benefit Keep a Child Alive!

Thank you Julie!!

Jay Sean Visits Sahara

On August 19, Jay Sean visited the Sahara Aalhad Care Home to see the beauty of Keep a Child Alive’s work on the ground in India. To date, KCA has helped Sahara provide nearly 2,000 people with comprehensive HIV/AIDS care services, including access to treatment, food, counseling, and residential care.

Sahara was started more than thirty years ago to help people struggling with substance abuse, and its efforts continue today to counter the debilitating stigma that surrounds both substance abuse and AIDS in India. During his visit, the Sahara team shared with Jay Sean the challenges they face working in the context of HIV/AIDS in India, and how Sahara and KCA are working together to improve the quality of life and health for the underserved HIV+ population in Pune.
 
Dr. Dharmadhikari, a physician who’s worked with the project since its inception, discussed with Jay Sean the dire situations that poor HIV+ people face in India, and the difference that the Care Home is making in the community. The increase in access to medical care and support has made an invaluable impact in the lives of Sahara’s patients, who were proud to meet Jay Sean and share their stories with him during his visit.

He met Santosh, who used to be a soldier in the Border Security Force, until he was terminated because he was HIV+. He met Girija, a patient so sick that the government hospital could no longer care for her, so she was transferred to Sahara as a last hope. He met Iyoti, who came to Sahara bedridden with tuberculosis, unable to take care of herself and her two children, and faced with the most difficult decision to give up her infant child for adoption. He met Rizwana, who contracted HIV through a blood transfusion, and lives in the Yerwada slum where Sahara does community outreach.  And he met Naveen, who was so proud to share that his daughter was born without HIV because the Sahara team made sure that his wife received the medicine she needed to prevent the transmission of HIV to her baby.  In Naveen’s words, “Jay Sean wanted to know what was happening as far as stigma and discrimination was concerned. He came across as an Indian who could easily relate to the problems of his own people. He was really happy to see people recovering and recovered, his face reflected this.”

The day ended with the young girls at Sahara dancing for Jay Sean and his team in all their Indian finery, and then Jay joined in by singing for everyone at Sahara. According to Gilbert, another patient at Sahara: “It was a great pleasure to meet such a personality, who was just so down to earth.” And in the words of Sahara’s patient Jayanta, “It was amazing to see that such a popular person is so simple and caring.”

KCA is proud to have Jay Sean as an ambassador for our work, and we need you – our donors and supporters – to act as ambassadors by spreading KCA’s message.  There are many more vulnerable people living with HIV in Pune today that still need our help.  Help KCA help Sahara and donate now.

Rani Learns to Read

Rani was born into peril to a poor rural family torn apart by HIV/AIDS at a time when the virus was beginning to show its face in rural India. Her father died of AIDS in 2005, and her mother died a year later, after years of illness and decline. Rani was sent to live with her aging grandmother, where she soon began working as a day laborer, at age 11, to help support the household.

Rani yearned to go to school, but school fees were beyond reach for this struggling family. Shortly after her mother’s death, Rani’s health began to deteriorate. She developed fevers and long periods of weakness.  When her grandmother finally took her to a local hospital, she learned she was HIV-positive, and feared that she was destined to die just as her parents had.

As so often happens with HIV-positive orphans who are cared for by aging grandparents, the cost for essential medical care was more than they could afford. Rani is luckier than most children in her circumstances. She found a new home at the Living India Home of Hope in June 2008.  Supported by KCA, 60 HIV-positive children live in peace here, where they eat well-balanced meals, go to school for the first time and experience the once seeming impossibility of childhood.

Rani was 13 when she came to Living Hope, and had never seen the inside of a classroom. With a school right on the premises, children who need extra attention can get the support they need. As a teenager, sitting in a classroom filled with 5-year-old students at a public school would have been humiliating for Rani, who has already faced the worst that life delivers.

Today, Rani is a veracious reader, an eager student and leader among the other children who live in the Living India Home of Hope. She is also a constant on the swing set during school breaks!

Your support for Keep a Child Alive makes it possible for Living India to continue providing the highest quality of care to children like Rani, once abandoned to horrifying circumstances because of HIV and AIDS. Help KCA help Living India and donate now.

Where in Brooklyn is Keep a Child Alive?

Summertime in BK just might be our favorite season! It’s full of lazy afternoon rooftop gatherings, scenic walks across the Brooklyn Bridge, community gardening, outdoor concerts, and of course our beloved street fairs and fleas! Together, with our amazing community supporters, Keep a Child Alive has been out and about around our Brooklyn ‘hood. 

Have you seen us yet this summer?

 Maybe you ran into us at the Epic DUMBO Stoop Sale, hosted by our office neighbors of the Dumbo Improvement District!  Held under the Manhattan Bridge archway on a beautiful Saturday afternoon mid June, the KCA team mingled with the public to spread the word of our lifesaving work and sell our amazing goodies handmade by our friends in Rwanda, Uganda, South Africa, and India.

Or perhaps you met fellow AIDS warrior and KCA supporter, Laura, owner of Park Slope’s 4PlayBK, at the Seventh Heaven street fair in June? She was even representing KCA this past weekend at Bastille Day on Smith Street selling yummy, chilled sangria!  

Between the two Brooklyn street fairs, Laura and friends were able to raise almost $5,000 for KCA! What a beautiful contribution! (This generous donation buys the food, clothing, shelter, education, and loving care for 50 child-headed households, for one year.)

We’re only halfway through the summer-where will KCA be seen next?  Host your own fundraiser for KCA in your city this summer, and share your ideas with us.  We are constantly impressed and inspired by the beautiful outpouring of passion from each of our supporters!  Click here to learn more about hosting a fundraiser for KCA.

AIDS Activists at Grand Saline High School!

KCA would like to extend an immense thank you to the students of Ms. Crone’s 1st period World Geography class at Grand Saline High School of Grand Saline, Texas! After learning about the devastating AIDS pandemic in their class, the students became determined to make a positive impact in the lives of those who suffer from this terrible disease, knowing very well that these were people they would probably never meet across the world.
 
In a matter of weeks, Ms. Crone’s class had elected leaders, held meetings, brainstormed and implemented ways to raise money for Keep a Child Alive including awareness posters, a bake sale, and sale of self designed t-shirts. $378 was raised by this young group of selfless and passionate AIDS activists! Keep a Child Alive is incredibly grateful for your support of our work saving lives in Africa and India!
 
Want to get involved in KCA Community? Explore our website for ways to fundraise in your own community, or start a KCA Chapter if you want to continually help us!  Contact dianna@keepachildalive.org for more information.