Houses of Hope: Housing for People with HIV and Their Caregivers In Shyira, Rwanda

The community of Chatham, NJ, through the Chatham United Methodist Church, will provide financial support to the rural Shyira Hospital in Rwanda, Africa, for the creation of housing for people living with HIV/AIDS and receiving treatment at the hospital, and for their local caregivers.

Rwanda is in Eastern Africa, in the Great Lakes region. Shyira is located in the northwestern corner, and most people in the area are subsistence farmers, raising beans, potatoes and other crops. The average income there is less than $100 a year. In Rwanda, the overall HIV prevalence ranges from 2 to 13%. Shyira, although in a rural area, has a relatively high HIV rate, due to the 1994 Genocide, and also the ensuing fighting in 1997 and 1998, when the Rwandan rebels returned across the border from the Congo. Many of the local residents have lost their land, houses, and families. Recent testing of pregnant women at Shyira Hospital with no health complaints suggests that between 5 to 10% are infected with HIV. In the Shyira vicinity, a third of the households are headed by women and some are headed by orphaned children.

Shyira is also the home of American physicians Louise and Caleb King and their four children, who five years ago answered the call to serve by becoming the staff doctors, medical instructors, and administrators of the local hospital which had been decimated during the Genocide. Shyira Hospital offers free HIV testing and counseling, and with the Rwandan Ministry of Health and the Columbia University School of Public Health’s multi-country AIDS program (MCAP), administers anti-retroviral treatment to people with HIV. After just one year of the treatment program, Shyira Hospital already follows 550 patients in the HIV clinic, 170 of whom are on antiretroviral treatment. Many are ostracized by their families; most do not have their own homes, and are forced to live in crowded conditions with other family members, or to rent houses, using up what little income they have.

In addition, Shyira’s nursing dormitories are overcrowded. Only a small percentage of the nursing staff are from the immediate vicinity. The Hospital recently hired 12 new nurses and lab techs—it is so hard to find a place for them. They are on-call two nights a week, and can be called in to the hospital at other times for emergencies. Two of the local staff have families with small children who sleep on the concrete floors, and the single nurses are often two to a bed. These are professionals who have received the best health training the country offers and have given up the chance to live in more comfortable cities in order to care for the rural poor.

This project will connect the “all-American” community of Chatham, NJ with a community far removed in terms of location, economics, race, culture, and history in rural Rwanda, by assisting people in great need improve their medical outcomes and quality of life, and supporting their sense of human dignity.

In 2007, we anticipate that Dr. Caleb and Dr. Louise King will visit CUMC. Additionally, we will receive their quarterly newsletter via email for those who are interested. To learn more about this community please visit www.shyira.org.

Donations are tax deductible and should be written to “Chatham United Methodist Church” in the memo put “Houses of Hope-Rwanda”.

Any question please contact: Amy Ball mrsamyball@yahoo.com