Name of Organization: Megabridge Foundation Regal Status: Non Governmental Organization Project Title: PROMOTING ACCESS TO PRIMARY HEALTH CARE Project Location: Meru County Contact Person: Peter K. Mungania The Secretary +254722589164 Physical Address: Runyenje’s – Embu Postal Address: Megabridge Foundation P.O. Box 20047 00100 GPO Email: [email protected]

Introduction Megabridge Foundation is a Non-Government Organization working in of Kenya. The main objective of the foundation is to improve livelihood opportunities for the poor through providing skills and support resources for self reliance. The foundation has a non discrimination policy – serves all regardless of race, tribe, creed, political affiliation, gender or any other factor.

Each year more than 500,000 women die in pregnancy or childbirth, and less than 10 million children die before their fifth birthday—nearly 40 percent of these in the first month of life. But evidence shows that at least 6 million of these lives can be saved each year with proven, cost-effective interventions.

In order to promote access to primary health care services to underserved population of 120,000 people in rural Kenya, this project is a community based health partnership which will combine the maternal, newborn and child health community health services into an alliance of local villages to ensure that all people including women, infants and children not only remain healthy, but thrive.

Project Beneficiaries About 750 000 people live in the geographic area to be covered by the project: 350 000 in the river sub-basin areas and 400 000 in agricultural areas. Of these, approximately 580 000 people are considered poor or at risk of falling into poverty. It is expected that the project will effectively reach some 20 000 households, or 120 000 people, living in five districts on the eastern slopes of .

Project Description This project involves training and equipping Community Health Volunteers as mobile health service providers. We are seeking for funds to provide improved low cost community outreach health services within Meru County in Kenya. This will enable us to train 14 volunteers as community health workers and provide them with bicycles, medical kits (with medical supplies) & one motorcycle so that they can provide localized mobile health clinics; midwifery assistance, educating people on the dangers of HIV/AIDS, supervise those patients who are receiving treatment and distribute Antiretroviral drugs among other health services.

Meru County is located within Eastern province of Kenya along the eastern slopes of Mt. Kenya and has a Population of 1,356,301 (Source: National Bureau of statistics 2009 National Census). Over 70% of the population lives in rural setups. Rural poverty in Kenya has increased over the last decade and with it has come a decline in standards of education and health care mainly affecting the young people who are faced with different problems ranging from unemployment to the high HIV AIDS infection rates. We expect that the project will effectively serve 120,000 people that live within the remote rural areas.

The provision of primary health care within Meru County is very poor. The doctor/population ratio in the county is about 1:23,761 showing an over-utilization of doctors. The transportation system is unreliable and expensive meaning access to health care for majority rural poor is unaffordable. Those that are infected with HIV/AIDS or other chronic illnesses often go without treatment. Illiteracy is widespread in the county with majority of children dropping from school before reaching class five (5). Only 40-50% of the population is able to express themselves in Swahili and English recognized as national languages.

The HIV/AIDS epidemic is a major challenge facing the county, with prevalence estimates highest among the 18-49 age group, which forms the main pool of trained and energetic labour force. The impact of HIV/AIDS and other diseases is seriously undermining the capacity of the rural poor from the region to engage in gainful economic activities while elderly grand parents are left to take care of thousands of orphaned grandchildren.

At least 23% of these children are underweight due to malnutrition while the bodies of People Living with AIDS are unable to resist many opportunistic infections, a factor contributing to 60% of all AIDS related deaths in the region. Proper diet maintains a high level of importance in sustaining the health of an individual, observation and experience have shown that children and adults who suffer from HIV/AIDS rapidly increase their level of sickness when adopting an inappropriate diet or facing malnutrition. Proper diet is important in sustaining the health of pupils and maintaining a high level of concentration in class; observation and experience have shown that locally children perform poorly when adopting an inappropriate diet or facing malnutrition.

The effective training of the community health workers and providing bicycles and a motorcycle will empower the community to take care of their own health from amongst themselves. This will be achieved through training youths and young persons on basic nursing care, pharmacology and nutrition by holding regular meetings for peer groups to share challenges, and the production of nutritious and sustainable food supplements through use of locally available resources.

This will save many patients from the huge costs in terms of transport and time spent traveling to hospitals located on average 10 kilometers apart usually full of long patients’ queues every day.

To sustain the project we will operate on a cost sharing basis – Community to pay minimal costs for medication. This will enable us replenish supplies, provide stipend to the health volunteers and maintain bicycles and motorcycle.

Project Goal To promote Access to Primary Health Care Services to underserved population in rural Kenya including mother child health services

Objectives a. To train 14 community health volunteers as health service providers b. To serve 120,000 underserved people through mobile outreach medical services c. Provide 14 community health volunteers with resources like medical supplies and bicycles to enable them serve the community. d. To conduct 20 village based outreach basic nutrition, health and sanitation educational seminars to solve the many preventable common diseases.

Specific project requirements:

RATE AMOUNT AMOUNT DESCRIPTION QTY KES KES US$ Volunteers training 14 6000 84,000.00 1,024.39 Medical kits & supplies 12 36000 432,000.00 5,268.29 Diagnostic Laboratory equipments 1set 150000 150,000.00 1,829.27 Bicycles 12 6000 72,000.00 878.05 Motorbike 1 150000 150,000.00 1,829.27 Desktop computer 1 45000 45,000.00 548.78 Laptop 1 60000 60,000.00 731.71 Projector 1 75000 75,000.00 914.63 Broadband Modem 1 4500 4,500.00 54.88 Office Desk 1 9000 9,000.00 109.76 Office Chairs 6 4 6000 24,000.00 292.68 Printer 1 30000 30,000.00 365.85 Photocopier 1 120000 120,000.00 1,463.41 Stationery 1 30000 30,000.00 365.85 Total 1,285,500.00 15,676.83

NB: a. Volunteers training – this will involve providing basic training on basic medication, diagnostic procedures and medicines handling. This will be a one month training. For laboratory diagnostic services we will use the services of a trained laboratory technician. b. Apart from providing services directly to the needy community, the Motorcycle is required to transport laboratory equipments to mobile testing stations, field officer undertaking field training activities, replenishing medical supplies to other volunteers, community mobilization, assessment, and monitoring. c. Desktop computer – required for general office work like editing and downloading information from the internet while printer will be used for printing downloaded material for distribution. d. Photocopier will be used for making many copies of the downloaded documents. e. Laptop and project – for field training on various health issues like HIV AIDS, home based care, hygiene among other issues relating to the underserved communities. f. Office Desk, Office Chairs – these are required for the project administration office use.

Monitoring and Evaluation The project aims directly to impact on the lives of mainly rural people in villages within the two counties.

As part of any project management, the activities of this project will be monitored and evaluated regularly to take prompt corrective measures when any problem occurs or to know the progress of the project. This will involve the community as is in the other stages of project management.

These activities will be monitored in strong and close collaboration with all stakeholders; particularly at the community level, through conducting review meetings with the community representatives, visits to the project sites, reporting concerned program quarterly, biannually and annually. The project coordinator and other volunteer project field officers will be responsible for coordination, planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the day-to-day implementation of the project activities and other stakeholders will provide technical support where necessary. The key indicators will mainly be:- a) The number of people served by the project from weekly to annually b) The number of adults attending VCT centers and testing c) The number of Educational/Counseling meetings held d) The numbers of HIV/AIDS patients in need of doctoral or medicinal care supported