Accomplishments
The service delivery areas are now responsible for better living for close to 6000 women and 2000 children living with and affected by HIV.
WOFAK is a service delivery non-governmental organization that provides care, support and empowerment to women and children living with and affected by HIV/AIDS to lead quality wholesome lives despite the infection. The organization has seen its growth from a humble beginning, during a time when HIV/ADS was considered a curse,a death sentence and a disease of people of lesser social integrity orientation.
WOFAK started its work when Kenya as a country had not publicly accepted that HIV/AIDS was there with its people and that those who were talking of it were paid to do so by some foreign agents. It was during this time that even those who tested positive to the infection could not afford to say so, nor accept that they are living with the virus.
It therefore took the gallant efforts and brave responses of the founder members of WOFAK to not only transform WOFAK into a formidable outfit, but also challenge the grave silence that had engulfed the whole country, right from the Government of Kenya to its very least of the citizenry. Through the public pronouncements of WOFAK, joined by an equally vibrant civil society movement, the country came to accept that in deed HIV was there and that Kenyans were being infected, just like in other countries of the world.
It took this same bravery of WOFAK as an organization, from around year 2002 to encourage other women in the Diaspora to speak of their infection and to seek medical and social support as a matter of right and not as a privilege. Thus the rights-based approaches to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support was born in Kenya, through the efforts of WOFAK. As the world continued to grapple with development of vaccines and other forms of HIV-specific treatments, access to these life-prolonging medications became an issue, with just less than 2.5% of Kenyans being able to afford such high-cost treatments, WOFAK mobilized and joined other members of the civil society in Kenya to form what is now known as Kenya treatment access coalition, a movement that has been responsible for the drastic reductions in costs of medications due to HIV infections at both public hospitals and other facilities offering healthcare.
With a lot of goodwill from well-wishers, Government of Kenya and the international community, WOFAK has been able to develop an effective treatment, care and support intervention, being implemented at 7 different centres within Kenya, most of which are situated in hard-to-reach areas of the country where many organizations would not dare to set up service delivery points. Some of the hard-to-reach areas where WOFAK has set up its centres include Homa Bay and Bumala in Busia, areas that suffer poor infrastructure, disease and inaccessibility. With this type of accomplishment, WOFAK wishes to do even better and it is only possible with constant support and goodwill from the rest of the country, including Government of Kenya, other civil society organizations, private companies, donor agencies, churches and individuals. It is therefore against this scenario that we continuously seek both financial and material support to enable us do this work even better.