Pamela’s Story
Pamela Aoko refused to be inherited after her husband died. Now she is inspiring other widows threatened with the practice of inheritance and stigma of being HIV positive.
A co-wife in the same family was putting pressure on Aoko to be inherited but Pamela stood her ground.
“In Nyakach, if a woman loses her husband, she has to be inherited before she can even build a house,” Aoko says
Aoko accepted her condition after she was invited to a meeting of positive people organized by ActionAid’s local partner.
“I realized that positive people can lead a normal life just like any other healthy people,” she says. Aoko joined the network and is helping to support other widows to come to terms with positive life.
“We demonstrate to affected families how to take care of affected people through the home based care program,” she says. “We also teach them basic hygiene practices and good nutrition from locally available food,” says the mother of two.
Working together, support groups devised nutritious liquid supplements ‘power porridge’ – made from flour ground from seven different types of grains: maize, soya, millet, cassava, groundnut, sorghum and beans.
“This helps even patients with sore throats to take balanced diet. The porridge is so effective and popular that the government has included it as part of the home based care kit in its strategy,” says Ken Odumbe, ActionAid HIV and AIDS coordinator.
They have also rented a group farm where they plant nutritious vegetables, grains and root tubers and share among the members.
A mother of six and professional basket weaver, 37-year-old Judith Kitai, is all praises for the support group.
She was inherited when her husband died in 2000 but decided to stay on her own with her children when she found out that she was HIV positive in 2003.
“I advise widows like me to have hope and look after their children so they can live well in the future.”
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