Equator and APECC visit

On Thursday I went on a pseudo-field trip with the 3 other American volunteers working for OGRA Foundation in Kisumu. We drove past the Equator so we of course had to stop and take funny pictures in both hemispheres. The main goal of the trip was to visit the APECC (Apostolic Evangelical Christian Church) home for the destitute and mentally disabled. OGRA is looking to form a partnership with this organization and perhaps build a health clinic within the compound. People from all over western Kenya come to the small rural village to dump/abandon their relatives with mental disabilities. For many Kenyan families, the cost and burden of taking care of a family member with a disability is often too great so they turn to a place like APECC to take care of their relatives. APECC does not receive any money from these families that abandon their relatives nor do they receive any government funding. This place is incredibily self-sufficient - they have many dairy cows, goats and chickens in addition to acres of farmland where they grow their own maize, onions, tomatoes, bananas, herbs and other items.

APECC is completely run by volunteers, many who have lived there for upwards of 30 years. The one director of the home gave us a tour of the compound where they house over 150 people. The occupants of the home range in age from the very young to the very old and from the orphaned to the abandoned. The director talked about their lack of funding and resources saying that they are only able to provide for the people's physical needs, not their mental needs. The children with mental disabilities can not be taught in a regular school setting but there are no special needs teachers so they often grow up without any education. The people with mental disabilities vary in severity. The one man we met used to be a university lecturer before becoming mentally unstable. Speaking with him, he now has a fear of hands. One thing that he said that struck me when he described his fear was that he is afraid of hands because it's hands that have brought him here, hands that keep him here, hands that bind/restrain, etc. For some of the patients who have violent tendencies they spend their days chained to trees. We saw one of these patients on our tour of the compound.

When we finished our tour, they brought us to a building and had us sit down at a table. Six women came in with large trays of food. For the six of us present, we couldn't have finished the food that was brought to us if we sat there for a week without ever getting up. The food was very very good and was truly a Kenyan feast. During lunch, the director told us more about the needs of the home. With so many patients, there is a constant need for varying levels of medical attention. With the remotely rural location of the home and the condition of the roads, it could be hours for a patient to reach the nearest district hospital. This unfortunately has led to several cases where the patients have died at the home because there was no form of transport available.

We at OGRA Foundation are hoping to begin a partnership with APECC soon to improve the quality of the dormitories and assist in other projects like acquiring an ambulance or building a small medical facility that we can supply.

I will try to post more information (contact info) about APECC this week if you would like to donate or get involved. Because of its rural nature, they currently do not have a website but we are looking to link them through the OGRA website soon