Let's act to support Kenya - Sister to Sister initiatives welcomed there...

Hi everybody,

I'm in Nairobi, Kenya, and am here with my PulseWire colleague Auma. She and I met yesterday and were able to talk at length with a number of NGO leaders from the YWCA, from a new group called Concerned Women in Kenya, CARE, MSF, and Women Fighting AIDS in Kenya, among others.

One of the key requests right now in Kenya is for examples of protocols to respond to gender-based violence and rape that have been initiated in other countries like Rwanda, Liberia, N Uganda, where war and rape have come together to cause a wave of HIV in women and in children.

I would like to use this list to talk about programs you know that work, and how you or organizations you work with can better come together to support the women in Kenya. One thing I keep thinking about is that we should have a simple website with tools that can be downloaded, like rapid response toolkits to rape, peer education modules for trauma and managing PTSD, education and other materials for teens and children who survived sexual assault in war, etc.

Let's start posting things on PulseWire, shall we? I'm also going to contact the AIDS Portal and some other websites to see if they have materials of use.

Please invite people in your circles who work on GBV and HIV to join this group.

One request has come from Kenya and the staff at the Women's Hospital in Nairobi: to LEARN from the experiences of the women in other countries like Rwanda, Liberia. They invite women survivors and NGOs who have experience to contact them.

Anne-christine