Update April 2010

The Hope Alliance is partnering with Rita Lugogo, Kenya manager of Choice Humanitarian (another Utah based humanitarian organization).  Rita lives in Mombasa, Kenya.  She and her staff  work directly with the Matumbi villagers to guarantee their commitment to the Matumbi Dispensary project so the villagers have sufficient buy-in, giving them the money only when needed for the next step in the process and monitoring the project so that the project is successfully completed.  She and Lung'anzi C. Mangale, Matumbi Village Committee Chair of the project, will keep us updated with reports on the progress of the project. 

The village leaders of Matumbi were able to secure the remaining funds needed to complete the Health Dispensary project and requested assistance with the completion of a water catchment system and pit latrines to improve the lives of the people in those areas.  The water catchment tank is for the use of the dispensary so that it has clean and available water.  Eighteen villages will have access to the dispensary: about 10,000 people will benefit frfom the access to clean water. The community training for 25 village leaders was held on April 6, 2010 and the final phase of the construction for the completion of the nurses home has begun.  The community training provided training between the dispensary and the Nurses Home so that both committees can work in agreement with each other to the benefit of the communities in the surrounding areas. 

Summary 2008

Kenya faces significant obstacles in providing access to healthcare for its' population.  Major causes of death in Kenya continue to be from communicable (and vaccine preventable) diseases and malnutrition.  Most importantly, women don't seem to be accessing health care especially in the rural areas and the maternal mortality and under-five mortality rate is virtually the same as it was in 1960.  A child's chance in Kenya of dying before age five is 15 times more likely than in the United States.