Daughters of Naomi

The Daughters of Naomi programme is a series of support groups made up of local, HIV-positive women coming together in community. JENGA provides counselling, medical treatment, health education, food, and in-home support. This practical assistance, alongside the deep relationships formed through the group, enables the participants to live full lives despite their illness.

The programme also reaches the local community through regular large group training, one-on-one household follow-ups, health education and HIV testing along with pre and post-test counselling. These initiatives are designed to target the deeply engrained stigmas associated with HIV/AIDS – judgments that keep people from being tested and treated in the first place.

Joy has known JENGA since 2010. Sadly in 2012, she began regularly falling sick with many illnesses such as malaria and typhoid. Joy is living with a HIV diagnosis but she hadn’t been taking anti-retroviral medications regularly as the medicines need to be taken whilst eating and she often did not have enough food.

Through attending the Daughters of Naomi, Joy received teaching about the importance of regularly taking medicine and JENGA gave some small gifts of food which allowed her to take her treatment. Our social worker was able to monitor Joy’s health and progress and JENGA paid for all of Joy’s medical bills. On top of this, when Joy’s house was damaged, and she didn’t have enough money to repair it, JENGA gave her the money for a new roof as well as giving her a start up capital to enable her to begin a small business. Joy says that, “It’s through this business that I am able to feed my family and also spare some to save in one of JENGA’s saving’s groups”. If this wasn’t enough, Joy’s son was also educated by JENGA right from lower secondary up to university. Early this year, he graduated with bachelor’s degree in Education from Uganda Christian University Mbale campus. Needless to say, his mum is very proud of him!