Inuka Project

INUKA! is a Swahili word meaning ‘Arise!’ INUKA! initiative: Improved access to paediatric HIV care through a community intervention model in Kenya ‘’A healthy future for 6000 children living with HIV in Kenya!’’

Inuka Project

We are empowering communities to arise and take up social and financial support for the well-being of children living with HIV in their communities.

In 2019, Women Fighting AIDS in Kenya (WOFAK) commenced a partnership to implement INUKA! programme in Homa Bay County in Western Kenya. We have now started our scale up in Nairobi County. The INUKA! program is developed to:

  • Find and bring to and retain in care 3000 children living with HIV between the age of 0-14 years who are not yet in care.
  • Monitor those children already in care to ensure ART initiation, retention and viral suppression
  • Reduce the number of Mother-To-Child-HIV-transmission by supporting 3,600 pregnant women living with HIV.
  • All with the ultimate aim of no more children dying of AIDS.

Objectives

INUKA! specifically addresses the barriers faced in the community to find and bring to and retain in care children living with HIV, by strengthening community structures and improving links between communities and health facilities. INUKA! is designed to promote a continuum of care between services in the PMTCT- paediatric HIV cascade through the use of dedicated community-based health care workers that serve as the bridge between clinical services and service utilization of every step in the PMTCT- paediatric HIV cascade and the community. This is critical to attain the goal of ensuring that every baby or child living with HIV has access to treatment and remains in care.

INUKA! has the following project objectives:
  • Mobilize and educate communities on paediatric HIV and PMTCT
  • Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being of children living with HIV between 0-14 years
  • Economically empower households and community health volunteers to ensure retention to care of children living with HIV.
  • Sustaining and scaling the INUKA! community intervention model

Our key Community Groups

Children living with HIV (0-14 years); pregnant women living with HIV