Our first challenge, of course, is the virtual lack of infrastructure
which hampers our activities. In many slum areas where we have drop-in
centres, basic things like water and ablution facilities
are bought. This makes our work harder and sometimes we have to dig deeper
into our pockets, because lack of some of these facilities can mean that
some of our members are prone to many illnesses, both water and air-borne.
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"It is not easy to sort out the needy cases from the not so needy ones primarily because everyone is in pain and does not want to be left out." |
Most of our members live below the poverty line and at times it is hard to
look into their medical welfare and ignore their socio-economic woes. Many of
our members want us to scale up the feeding programme because, as minimal as
it is, that’s what they depend on. Some even have nothing to eat
for the whole weekend because we only provide our services on weekdays.
Poverty is an ill that is working against us and leading to
the vicious cycle of HIV and AIDS.
Another challenge is the fact that our budget means that we can only
cater for a certain number of people. And it is not easy to sort out
the needy cases from the not-so-needy ones primarily because everyone
is in pain and does not want to be left out.
With constrained finances, we have also had to cut some of our members out of
our programmes, regardless of the degree of need. For example, in the recent
past we have been forced to drop some of our members out of essential programmes
such as the feeding scheme. In the long run we find out that these members succumb
to some otherwise manageable infections because treatment and nutrition go together.
The women who make up 99% of our constituency reside in resource-poor
settings. We have found out that we have to make a way to empower
them financially, which we have actually done through partnering with
micro-finance institutions. But the downside is that after accessing loans,
our members use the money on other “pressing” matters.  |
