Research

This semester instead of taking classes, I will be conducting research from January until the beginning of April. I have returned to my internship at OGRA Foundation in Kisumu and have decided to do my research through OGRA. As a Community Health student, I wanted an internship that would allow me to work in the field on the grassroots level working with the people who need help. As I have mentioned in previous blog entries, my organization operates a feeding center in Ombeyi (a small village about 30 minutes outside of Kisumu). Interacting with the children during my first few months, I knew I wanted to work to improve their lives. The feeding center currently feeds 36 orphans and vulnerable children 2 meals a day, 6 days a week due to budget/funding constraints. For some of the children, the food they receive at the feeding center is the only food they eat which means that from Saturday afternoon until Monday morning, some of the children may not eat at all.

My research is focusing on the community of Ombeyi, more specifically, children at Kiliti Primary School. I met with the headteacher of the primary school and he gathered information from each class about numbers of orphans and vulnerable children. For the purpose of the study, vulnerable children are defined as children from extremely poor families who although they may have both parents, the parents may suffer from mental or physical disabilities that prevents them from providing for their family. In Kiliti Primary School alone, there are nearly 200 orphans and vulnerable children! As I said, our feeding center currently provides for 36 children - there is obviously a need to expand the program.

For my research I will be focusing on a group of 21 orphans and vulnerable children from the feeding center who are under the age of 13 (pre-pubescent) and a similarly sized group of orphans and vulnerable children from the primary school who are currently not receiving any help from an organization. I measured their height and weight for an initial reading to measure their Body Mass Index (BMI). Body Mass Index can be a good indicator of if a person is underweight, at normal/healthy weight or if they are overweight. Measure your Body Mass Index here

In the initial reading 14 of the children in the study were either underweight or very underweight according to their Body Mass Index. Five children were considered to be underweight at the Feeding Center and nine children were considered to be underweight (1 was very underweight) at the primary school.

The second major component of my research is conducting household surveys. I will be visiting the homes of each of the 42 children in the study to perform a wellness analysis. The parent or guardian is given or read a detailed informed consent form in either English or Luo. For many of the study participants so far, they have been illiterate so they are read the entire consent form by a Community Health Worker and then they grant their consent through their thumb print.

Summary of research results thus far:
In most of the homes I've visited, there have been 2 main rooms in the house. All of the walls are made of mud with a stick frame. Some of the houses have metal sheet roofs while others have a thatched roof. Many of the children don't brush their teeth, and for those who do, they use a stick. None of the houses have had a toilet or pit latrine so far which means that people just go to the bathroom in the brush.

One of the survey questions asks if they know how HIV is transmitted. A very common response has been that HIV is contracted through infidelity. When I ask them to elaborate, they usually don't but state that they have just heard that it is spread when people are not faithful. This signals a very basic understanding of how HIV is transmitted which can help to explain the very high rate of HIV prevalence in the community. A few months ago I participated in a Community Health Worker training where we discussed sexual health. We asked the people in the training to write down myths that they've heard in the community about family planning. A response that surprisingly came up a lot was that women were concerned that the condom might slip off and become lodged in the uterus. People also kept saying that condoms were expensive even though they can be found in that village for about 10 KSH per (13 cents) and several organizations supply them for free at clinics in the area. When we engaged people further they started talking more about the shame, embarrassment or stigma of buying a condom.

For most of the families I've met with so far, the only meals their children eat come from the feeding center. The feeding center only provides 2 meals a day, 6 days a week. So for most of these children, they may not eat at all between Saturday lunch and Monday breakfast. I have not started meeting with families of the children who don't receive meals at the feeding center, but I feel like the responses will be very interesting.

I am hoping to get a lot more surveys done this week so I will update when I can.