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Eldoret, AMPATH HIV hospital, Kitale AIDS Programme

This morning Joe took us on a tour of the HIV hospital he's building in Eldoret. The first floor will be patient care, second floor teaching medical students, third floor undecided, and basement research. Joe built it mostly with individual donor money--no government support. The cost is $1.6 million. The quality of the construction and design look good.

We drove 1-2 hours north of Kitale to visit the Kitale AIDS Programme. It's run by two Irish nuns, Mary and Teresa, and an American physician's assistant, Marj. They've built a few patient exam rooms and offices on a 100 foot by 100 foot plot of land next to a church. They started small, in 1992, with home visits. Now they have 700 clients, whom they mostly see in the clinic. They started receiving ARVs a month ago and just put their 80th client on the drugs.

The largest expense of the Kitale AIDS Programme is helping orphans and children of clients go to school. The program buys uniforms, books, and pays secondary school fees and vocational training fees for 500 orphans. The total program budget is $100k and the orphan budget is $25k.

Catherine and I donated $6300 to the program--half of that is Google's match. Mary asked me where I'd like the money to go, and I said, "Whatever you think is most urgent." Mary and Teresa both replied, "The orphans." We funded a quarter of the annual orphan budget!

I feel good about the money we donated to the Kitale AIDS Programme because it's a lean operation and I have a clear idea of where the money is going. Marj, Mary, and Teresa are simple people who have been helping people like this for many years. They genuinely care for the people they're working with.

The Kitale AIDS Programme includes an income generation component. It started 1.5 years ago and now has 100 clients. A social worker first visits the client and makes sure basic needs are met. Then they set the client up with a charcoal shop, a donut shop, or a one-acre shamba (farm). The loans are more like grants because the program coordinators don't expect their money back.

We visited an orphanage in the afternoon. It serves 100 boys and girls. We saw their bunk beds, food silos, and classrooms. All were immaculate. I quizzed a few kids on addition and subtraction and they answered correctly *in english*.