The community is engaged in the three ministries namely; Riara Ministry-Kibera, Vocation animation and study. There are five sisters in the community two are working in partnership with Mirror of Hope Community Based Organisation, three are studying and one sister is responsible for vocation promotion.
Riara Ministry: This is a new initiative and the first of its kind in the Congregation that MMMs are working in collaboration with one of the AMMMs, who runs a community based organisation called Mirror of Hope CBO in one of the urban slums in Kenya. There are two sisters working in this Project.
Mirror of Hope CBO office is located in Kibera. The organization is currently running the following programs for women and youth in the community namely:
Mirror of Hope CBO office is located in Kibera. The organization is currently running the following programs for women and youth in the community namely:
Vocation Animation: One of the sisters is responsible for vocation promotion in Kenya. She is supported by the sisters in the community and in the country. She is also in touch with other MMM sisters in the congregation who sometimes refer prospective candidates to her that contact them through the internet. There is a vibrant network of vocation animators in Kenya (Kenya Association of Vocation Animators) which she works in collaboration with for vocation promotion in schools, higher institutions and parishes.
Working with Mirror of Hope CBO which deals with young people is a good opportunity for her to attract vocation as well as impact meaningfully in the lives of the youth.
Study: There are three sisters on full time studies and one sister on part time study, doing an on-line course in counselling psychology in Riara Community. One sister is doing Nursing at Daystar University Nairobi, another in Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA) studying Social works and lastly a sister studying Religious Formation at Tangaza, who is finishing her program this year. Their studies are going well in spite of the challenges of the pandemic.
MMM Mukuru Health Centre offers a wide range of services both at the facility level and at the Community. They are as follows below:
Maternal child health:
Antenatal clinic for pregnant mothers (ANC). All mothers are encouraged to do HIV tests and if any of the mothers is positive, they are immediately transferred to the PMTCT clinic to be managed properly to ensure that the baby is given birth to as HIV negative.
All the above are carried out by registered nurses and are supported by Community Health Volunteers (CHVs)
Outpatient Department(OPD):
We have consultation rooms where clients are being seen after which prescriptions are made according to the illness. These services are carried out by Clinical officers.
Labratory:
We have a routine laboratory with proper equipment where tests are carried out as required. We also run a TB lab where tuberculosis tests for clients who present with the symptoms are carried out. In doing this, we have a Biosafety machine to process sputum and this has made our work easy over the years. These are done by professional staff who are qualified as Laboratory Technicians.
TB/HIV Departments :
This is where clients who are infected with either TB or HIV are attended to and put on treatment.
We do the Direct Observation Therapy (DOT) for TB clients to ensure that drugs are well taken by the clients. We provide milk and food baskets for clients who are on intensive care, this will enable them take their drugs with ease and reduce the pill burden.
HIV clients are also on food baskets especially those who are needy and cannot afford a meal. Food helps them to take their medication without reactions. They also often suffer from the lack of a balanced diet. There is a daily adherence counselling session for all clients present so as to encourage them to live positively and not default in taking their medication.
Both HIV and TB clients undergo regular psychosocial support to help them accept their status and leave a positive life. We also have support groups in which they belong to and participate monthly with other members. In that forum, they are able to share their experiences and learn from each other regarding coping mechanisms amidst other things.
We have weekly workshops in households and schools on Counter Human Trafficking (CHT). The outcome of this is that when community members suspect any trafficked child, they refer them to our facility and then we do a follow up to rescue the child and where possible, reintegrate the victim back to his or her family.
HTS Centre:
We run a HIV Testing and Counselling (HTS) Centre where clients walk in and request voluntarily to be tested for HIV and if positive, they are counselled and put on care and treatment.
Pharmacy:
We have a Pharmacy dispensary where medication is dispensed according to prescription for clients. This is handled by a certified pharmacist.
We run a health record unit where we collect data daily for analysis which helps for managerial decisions for the growth of the facility. The data collected feeds into the agenda of interventions to be conducted in every department at the facility and health zones at the wider community.
Social office:
It is engaged in listening to all clients that present with psychosocial challenges which includes cases of HIV and GBV. Thereafter the clients are referred to the various departments or institutions that can help deal with their issues or further manage them. We also work with communities to empower them to make informed decisions about their lives in the footsteps of Paul Freire, where we encourage communities to come up with initiatives that will help them solve the challenges that they have as far as health and development is concerned. It will be good to note here that survivors of GBV and victims of human trafficking are given priority at our facility and when we rescue them, they are put in safe houses as we follow up on counselling sessions for them as well as legal interventions as the case may be.
Community engagement:
We engage the youth around our catchment area on sanitation and hygiene. One of the activities we carry out with them is monthly clean up inside the slum as well as garbage collection from household after which the youth in turn separate what needs to be disposed from what can be recycled and then it is sold out to buyers and income is gotten to do small businesses to fend for themselves. This is really thriving.
We also engage and work with community health volunteers and village elders in the different interventions at community level because they are the gatekeepers and we can always get valid information from them as to how to work better and breach gaps where needed. We do a lot of outreaches on HIV/TB/GBV/CHT interventions as well as, these are done in households.
We also go to schools for health programs and our talks are on different messages according to the trends. Through the school health program, we get connected with young girls who have dropped out of school due to pregnancy, and so we are able to help them with counselling sessions and safe spaces until they give birth.
We have a program called WE MEN CARE. This is to bring men on board to be champions of safe health care. We do this by encouraging the pregnant mothers to come with their spouses so that as the mothers are being attended to, we can engage the men by educating them on how to take care of their wives during and after pregnancy amidst other things. We also use that opportunity to carry out HIV testing for the couples present.
Specialized Ministry, Rwanda: Sr. Martine Makanga MMM
Although part of the Nairobi community (Prof Saitoti Rd), I am now responding to Christ’s healing mission in Rwanda since January 2021 employed by the Ministry of Health. My mission is three-fold:
Rwanda has a population of 13.1M. It has four referral hospitals (King Faisal, the Rwanda Military Hospital, Kigali University Teaching Hospital and Butare University Teaching Hospital) and also the Ndera Neuropsychiatric Hospital.
My work base is at the Military or Kanombe Hospital which receives referrals from 10 Districts from the east of the country.
It is a challenging mission. Workwise It can be very demanding with sometimes long days in theatre. But I am free at week-end to rest, pray and do personal house work.
But what moves me and gives me energy?
B. Free Pediatric Surgical Camp in Pointe-Noire – Rep of Congo)
For the past few years, I have been invited yearly for 2 weeks to my archdiocese of origin of Pointe-Noire to operate freely some 100 very poor children aged 0 to 15. The camp is organized by the Diocesan Caritas, local medical teams and the petroleum company Chevron who pays for the anesthetics, all needed drugs and my fare to the Rep of Congo. At the end there is a thanksgiving Mass with the Archbishop. This is always a wonderful experience. The poor indeed hear the Good News.
Kasina
Kasina Health Centre (KHC) started providing health services in 1946 under the administration of the Missionary Sisters of Africa. In 2005 the administration and day-to-day management of KHC with its PHC/Outreach programme was entrusted to the Congregation of the Medical Missionaries of Mary. MMM added the Outreach Development Programme to their services in 2008. In 2007 KHC built and opened an HIV Testing and Counselling Centre. PMTCT services commenced in 2008.
In the ministry, we are all engaged in health care with specific services:
The Medical Missionaries of Mary Healing Centre (MMM HC) is a corporate ministry. All four sisters in the mission work in this project which has different activities. There is the clinic which takes care of minor illnesses as well as preventive care, especially health education. It is an expanded program on immunization, antenatal care to pregnant women, social and sustainable development and the administration of the facility.
The MMM HC is located at a place called Eastern Bank some three kilometers away from Wau town across the Jur River. This area has a population of over twenty-five thousand people (25,000) who are mostly returnees from some war torn states within South Sudan. The MMM HC operates five times a week while field work under the social department is done twice a week and this takes care of some elderly people in the catchment, malnourished and sick children and demonstrates gardening to improve nutrition.
Nangwa
CAPACITAR is an International network of solidarity to promote the wellness and healing of persons and communities. It began ‘spontaneously ‘in Nicaragua when Patricia Cane facilitated an Arts festival with people traumatized by the on-going conflict – many of them had lost family members or friends or had themselves received death threats. In the evenings, Patricia used movements and other modalities for her own self-care; seeing this, the people asked her to teach them what she was practicing. After a few days feeling better, able to sleep, they exclaimed: “ Patricia what you taught us is ‘CAPACITAR’’! Capacitar being a Spanish verb meaning to empower, to give life. This led Patricia to study psychology and do a PhD in Multicultural Wellness.
In 2019 MMM carried out a needs assessment survey around Arusha. It became clear that training in pharmaceutical services was needed, starting at the lowest level, the training of pharmaceutical assistants. Soon the Government will make it mandatory for all pharmacies to have at least one trained staff at this level in order to be registered. By training pharmaceutical assistants we are also addressing other development goals
We collaborate with the Good Samaritans and a volunteer from local Government Council 1, by giving health/ life skills talks to youth in parish and schools as well as visiting the elderly. We take the elderly and children with disabilities to hospitals for medical care and rehabilitation centers respectively. We got funds from MMM Small Projects for nutrition supplements to 23 families. Michael’s House is supporting us to bring hope to the destitute elderly by paying for their medical care, providing food supplements and starting Income Generating Activities. We had initiated literacy classes to disadvantaged young women but covid-19 made us stop them for now.
If an elderly has a specific problem, for example with eyes or fracture, a special trip is fixed by both the Good Samaritan representative and MMM and we take her to a health facility where she can get such care.