Causes Worth Fighting For 1#

I want to take the time to talk about some causes that are close to my heart. The causes in this post and the one to follow are a variety of causes and some you may have heard of but I suspect that one or two of them you have not.

Care for Aids
(https://twitter.com/CAREforAIDS, careforaids.org)

Care for Aids is a charity I discovered when I spent time in Kenya in 2009. I'll be honest, I don't know who set it up or where their head office is, who runs the company etc. Not because I don't care but because I approached the organisation another way, volunteering through the connections between Care for Aids and the company I was out in Kenya with. This meant that I was thrust into the heart of the action, giving hands on care and so the also very important but separate 'office stuff' I didn't become involved with.

Care for Aids is set up on the principle that the most effective way to help those affected by Aids and HIV is to empower them. They provide holistic and spiritual care to the clients they take on for a period of about ten months. This means during this time a client receives food, counselling, medical attention and lessons in a variety of skills designed to equip the client to be self-sufficient at the end of the ten month period. So, for example, if a client likes making jewellery s/he can attend classes teaching them new jewellery making skills and if they are interested in setting up a business classes in how to start. Often, if it is needed, a client also receives a start up fund at the end of their time with Care for Aids to help them start their new business. They are seen and educated through local churches as well as receiving visits in their homes if they are too unwell to travel.

I was privileged enough to take part in the holistic and spiritual care given on centre days (days in which the local churches gave their space over to be used as meeting points) and to enter people's homes to speak to them also. Many people in Kenya live on almost nothing. Many live on nothing, getting by with whatever help and food they can find intermittently. To say seeing their living conditions opened my eyes would be an understatement. However, what I learnt from visiting them in their homes was not negative but rather the opposite. Despite being shocked to see people live the way they did, I was somewhat aware beforehand that people in Africa, and other places, where forced to live in horrific conditions. What I was not aware of was the warmth and generosity with which I was welcomed into their homes. People for whom taking one step was agony insisted on walking me sixteen steps to the road. Those who had little space offered me the more comfortable seats to sit on. Those who had little to eat or drink offered me tea. They were so grateful to Care for Aids and their volunteers, both local and from overseas, that they were determined to show it. To me, that showed both the power of Care for Aids and the hospitality of the Kenyan people.

Care for Aids is a Christian organisation. Part of the care and counselling they provide is spiritual. However, they do not take on clients on the bases of what faith they do or do not have. It is open to all and nobody is forced to go to a Church service or baptised against their will. Many, through the programme, do start to know and form a relationship with Jesus but this is an additional result of the company and not why it was set up. It is like getting a free pair of flip flops with this month's glossy magazine.

Time to Change
(@TimetoChange, time-to-change.org.uk)

If you have read any of my previous posts, you may be aware why this cause is so close to my heart. In case not, I'll explain. Since four or so months before my fifteenth birthday, I have suffered, in some form or another, from depression and anxiety. To say my life is unaltered by this would be a lie. Not only has it affected my own actions but it has affected the way I have been treated. Work is especially hard as you are now often obliged to disclose any medication you are on and why. When I apply for jobs, I dread it coming up. I once had a forty-five minute phone conversation in which I was able to persuade my future employer that while I did have both depression and anxiety it was something that affected my personal and social life only. I had to convince them I was fit for the job I had been offered. Basically, I needed to make them see I wasn't 'mad' or unstable. And I can understand why they might have thought that. With so many mental health conditions and so little knowledge of them and what having one of these conditions entails, they might have thought I was likely to snap at any point, including during my working hours. They thought it could make me unreliable and unsafe.

Time to Change looks to challenge these preconceptions and encourage us all to talk about it all, our demons, our conditions, how we're treated, how we're affected, how we are. It is as simple as that. And yet more important than you might imagine. A conversation can change, and save, a life.

Uhuru Child
(https://twitter.com/UhuruChild, www.uchild.com)

Uhuru Child is another organisation I came across in Kenya. Uhuru means Freedom in Swahili and reflects the organisation's determination to find sustainable ways to create employment for Kenyans and their ethos that providing education to young Kenyans will give them the freedom to chose their own path. Education in Kenya is mandatory at primary level (4/5-13 years). However, in reality not all Kenyans this age receive an education. Children must wear uniform to attend. Uniform costs money. Money is something many Kenyans do not have. And so many children do not go to school. On top of that, when you are 13, you take a test to get you into senior school. It is much like the 11-plus system in the UK. Except with the 11-plus system, whatever the result, you will go to a school. In Kenya, if you fail the test, you cannot go to senior school. If you can't go to senior school, your employment prospects fall dramatically.

Uhuru Child is determined to change this. They are building schools to provide free education to young Kenyans and work to create organisations that empower adults and children, through education and employment, as well as providing Christian discipleship on the side, much in the same way as Care for Aids, on a who wants it basis. By helping create ways to empower the Kenyan people they work with, Uhuru Child looks to make them self-sufficient, giving them the freedom to set their own course in life. A freedom that we in the West often take for granted.

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