Chicago-based Project Harambee works to fight African AIDS epidemic

Jan. 7, 2009

Story by Jessica Rosenberg

Kathleen Harrison was never that interested in Africa.

But that was 2001 – before the former Loyola University medical professor visited an orphanage for HIV positive children in Kenya. On the long trip home, the images of the parentless children played back in her head. She knew she wanted to help, but was discouraged by the fact that she was just one person.

That’s when she took matters into her own hands.

Four years later, Harrison founded Project Harambee, a nonprofit helping sub-Saharan Kenyans and Zambians affected by HIV. Harrison created a craft co-op and implemented several economic and health education programs designed to empower families rather than give them a handout.  And the word Harambee implies that mission – it means “all pull together” in Swahili.

“I saw the impact of HIV on women and children,” said Harrison, who runs Harambee from her Berwyn home. “I couldn’t not do something.”

For cultural and economic reasons, Sub-Saharan Africa faces overwhelming odds in the fight against AIDS. Her organization operates at the grassroots level with local churches and school groups in Kenya and Zambia.  Harambee helps about 200 people.

At her display table at an Oak Park fair trade market, a tall, redheaded Harrison stands among a colorful spread of hand-made dolls, beaded jewelry and binder upon binder of photographs of Africa. In a soft voice, she tells shoppers about the co-op and the people who made the items.  Harrison sells their crafts in the United States and 100 percent of the money supports Harambee’s programs. Those programs directly benefit the same people who make the crafts.

“One person can make a difference,” she said.

In addition to the craft co-op, other Harambee projects include donation initiatives that provide solar cookers and farm animals for families.  Harambee also takes volunteers to Kenya to organize health education programs.

“Personally, I believe that I must do the right thing and do it when and where it needs doing,” said Harrison.  “I can’t refuse to help because it’s ‘someone else’s problem.'”

And Africa was the place with the most need.

Of the world’s 33 million people infected with the virus, about 67 percent of them – or around 22 million people – live in sub-Saharan Africa, according to a 2008 report conducted by UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS.

The reasons HIV and AIDS are widespread in sub-Saharan Africa are complex.

“It’s not about race, it’s about being disenfranchised,” said Kearsley Stewart, professor of medical anthropology at Northwestern University.  Adding that unfavorable socio-economic conditions play a significant role in contracting the virus.

Kenya’s unemployment rate is about 25 percent, said Warren Buckingham, country coordinator in Kenya for PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. But the U.S. Department of State says that number could be as high as 40 percent.

Regardless, “Kenyans face dire economic circumstances,” said Buckingham, and most live on $1 per day.

These economic conditions contribute to, what Buckingham calls, transactional sex – the act of trading sex for food that is then sold in markets.  He said it is not unusual for both men and women to have multiple sex partners and with men migrating to cities in search of jobs, they often bring illnesses like HIV back to their homes.

While every case is different, Stewart said that for cultural reasons, married women in sub-Saharan Africa are at an increased risk of contracting HIV.”Once you are married, you have no control to resist sex from your husband,” she said.  This is a problem because it is socially acceptable for men to have extra-marital affairs, she said. Adding that many men still refuse condoms. Women account for 60 percent of HIV infections in sub-Saharan Africa, according to UNAIDS reports.

Access to health services is an issue Harambee addresses.

In a shantytown near Nairobi, Kenya, 27-year-old Kate Harrison, Kathleen Harrison’s daughter, remembers inhabitants living in cardboard shelters with corrugated tin roofs. The huts had no floors and were built on top of dirt. There were no organized garbage pick-up or sanitation services and trash was strewn across the land. The stench from garbage and human waste was overwhelming.

Kate Harrison was a Harambee volunteer in 2007 and her group trained women in oral rehydration therapy. She learned that access to clean water and staying hydrated is a challenge. And for children who are HIV positive and more prone to illnesses like Malaria, hydration is even more important.

For those with HIV, some urban hospitals give out antiretroviral drugs for free, said Buckingham. But for rural Kenyans it can cost them a day’s wage just to get to the health facilities.

“For [rural Kenyans], transportation is a barrier to care,” he said.

Harambee came to Kenya with these conditions in mind but looked to the townspeople for ideas on how to help.

“The initiative really came from the women themselves,” said volunteer Kate Harrison. The group surveyed the town asking people what their main concerns were.

“The point was to listen to the people, let them speak about their problems, and try to avoid the paradigm of being the great white hand,” she said.

They trained the group in water sanitation and how to make simple electrolyte solutions to keep children hydrated. One woman, she remembers, was so excited about what she learned, she ran home to tell her family and friends.

While this is one small victory in an enormous battle, Harrison stays positive.

“It boils down to the Golden Rule,” she said. “I try to meet each person as my own child or my own mother. When there is a need for one you love, you don’t stand on ceremony.”