Like the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, Zambia is in a seemingly never ending struggle with HIV & AIDS and HBC CHIKUNI is central to the fight against the silent disease in this area of rural Zambia.
Our vision is to improve the quality of care for the terminally ill and prevent the diseases spread by sensitizing our community especially on HIV & AIDS, but our work includes much more than that. We are not only aiming at improving the patient's health, but also their education, status and food security, while communities and families are as well benefiting.
The project started under the Chikuni Mission Hospital and was turned into a community based project in 2000. The idea to take this step originated from the insight that the only way to win the fight against HIV/AIDS is to involve the entire community.
With great support from the community Chikuni Home Based Care is able to provide free medical treatment and care for the patients at their home as long as possible. This dramatically reduces the burden on the hospital, where beds were being filled by HIV patients that had opportunistic infections and were bed ridden for large periods of time before the project took off.
One of the main purposes of HBC is to improve people's access to information and education in order to help them protect themselves against the disease and sensitize the community about HIV/AIDS related issues. The result of six years of home based care work is a community where people can openly discuss the silent desease and stigma attached to it is significantly reduced.
Currently the centre offers a variety of services to more than 1000 patients living in 180 villages within its 5000 KM2 catchment area that covers 3 districts; Monze, Gwembe & Choma. New people are tested HIV positive on an almost daily basis and each one of them has the opportunity to become clients of Chikuni HBC.
Care Givers Exchange Meeting
(Zimbabwe - Zambia)
Outreach activities in one of the Chikuni centres
Workshop for Cousellors