The Kapasseni Project
Many children and adults in Kapasseni have suffered from treatable and preventable ailments, such as ear and eye infections and diarrhea. Other serious illnesses included bilharzia, malaria, dengue fever, yellow fever, cataracts, infection during childbirth and malnutrition in young children. HIV/AIDS infection rates are low, but the people remain vulnerable. We are addressing Kapasseni’s health care needs with a village health centre, programs for eye care and for HIV/AIDS education, and through assistance to Perpetua’s Kuwangisana home based care program (based in Sena but also serving many villages including Kapasseni).
Kapasseni Health Centre
In 2002, the Kapasseni Project and a matching grant from CLWR funded construction and staffing of Kapasseni’s four room health centre, where a nurse , first aid attendant, and two traditional midwives provide pre-natal, maternal and child care, as well as first aid and treatment of diseases. The health centre serves about 9,000 people in the area around Kapasseni, and is under the supervision of the Mozambican Health Ministry.
Health Care
The Kuwangisana Organization
Perpetua’s Kuwangisana program helps to improve the lives of people with HIV/AIDS, their vulnerable children, orphans and grandparents caring for them. Patients are often outcasts because of traditional beliefs that those stricken with HIV/AIDS have been cursed. The Kuwangisana workers help patients and their families understand the disease and how to deal with it, by providing simple medications, food, follow-up and much-needed love and friendship. In partnership with the Sena District Hospital, Kuwangisana provides testing, treatment, and palliative care. The project also serves the Kapasseni area. The Kuwangisana program intitially received funding from the Kapasseni Project, the Stephen Lewis Foundation, and Medical Teams International.
The program has grown and expanded to many other rural areas with a Pepfar Grant in 2007.
Kuwangisana has received a grant of $500,000 over three years from the UK-based Positive Action for Children Fund, which provides support for services to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV. Kuwangisana was one of only six partners selected from among 1,500 applications. Although approaches to prevent mother-to-child transmission are available in urban areas, Kuwangisana will break new ground with an innovative approach to be applied in remote rural areas where help is badly needed. Congratulations to Perpetua, Gabriel and the Kuwangisana team! The PACF grant has come at a crucial time, as the large grant that supported expansion of Kuwangisana in the last three years has come to an end. Perpetua and Gabriel are developing proposals for further program funding, and The Caia Connection is continuing to provide funding for niche areas not covered by large grants. For example, The Caia Connection enabled Kuwangisana to build its main community centre buildings, which allowed Kuwangisana to access large-scale funding from the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and more recently from Family Health International and the Mozambique government.
