Where people with HIV get more than hope
When her husband died of HIV and Aids in 1998, Mrs Margaret Oyugi was left with her five children, not knowing where to start. She had been employed as a teacher in a private school, but all the confusion disorganised her and she lost her job.
She soon invested all her savings in a business project that did not help her family economically, leaving her stuck without a job and only a business that could barely support them.
“Later, I decided to take an HIV test with my children, who tested negative while I was positive. I was relieved for them, but I had no idea that things would turn for the worse,” she says.
It all began with her financiers who were mostly family and friends. While she had been able to borrow money before, they began refusing to lend it to her because of her status.
But what Mrs Oyugi may not have known then, was that like so many others, she was going through the motions that the HIV and Aids label had managed to create for those suffering from the condition. Being infected with the virus was like a death sentence for the infected and their close relatives.
She was soon to learn, after approaching several banks and other lending institutions and being turned down, that this kind of treatment on the infected was not only in the social circles, but in the financial world as well.
To this sector, they were the epitome of customers that had to be shied away from.
Because of all this, the entrepreneur, had to put her big business investment on hold and venture into buying and supplying of vegetables, which required much less capital.
But things have been slowly changing. Three years ago, Mrs Oyugi was able to revamp her business and expand it through micro-loans provided by a K-Rep Bank project, which it has been undertaking to change the lives of people infected or affected by the disease.
Dubbed Fahida, the community-based project that was re-launched recently, is a savings and credit scheme driven by the bank’s subsidiary, K-Rep Development Agency.
Mrs Oyugi joined the Fahida programme together with 30 other HIV-positive women from Kariobangi, Nairobi, who she had met during her struggles, and today, she says, the programme has transformed all their lives through savings, credit and training services.
“I thought being HIV-positive and having no money was the end of life, especially being a woman,” she says.
Even though the project has been running since 2001, few people know about it, which is why the bank is on a mission to increase awareness ahead of this year’s World Aids Day celebration to be marked on December 1.
“The objective of this project is to mitigate against social stigma and the negative economic impact of HIV and Aids, by providing beneficiaries with financial services to help stabilise their family incomes,” said K-Rep Bank’s, managing director Mr Kimanthi Mutua, in a recent interview.
Under the Fahida project, which is supported by Usaid, HIV-positive people, their close families and care-givers can access a maximum of Sh200,000, payable at 13 per cent interest annually.
The agency uses the micro-finance formula to lend to individuals who should be in a group, since it is the group members who can guarantee the loan.
According to the National Aids Control Council, there are more than one million people currently living with HIV and Aids in Kenya, and many more affected by it.
Of these, 65 per cent are women between the ages of 19 and 45, intensifying the poverty problem, as it is difficult for a woman to get capital in the first place. It is no wonder that over 75 per cent under the Fahida programme are women.
The good news is that some of these people have access to and are using life-prolonging anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs), making financial institutions increase their confidence in them.
“Before, no bank would give a loan to an HIV-positive person, as no insurance company would guarantee it. It was perceived as a high-risk undertaking, with possibilities of non-payment,” says Mr Aleke Dondo, managing director of the agency.
He was speaking on the sidelines of the event to mark the project’s journey, where he said CIC Insurance company has also been working closely with the project.
The programme aims to provide credit to HIV and Aids victims and other affected people, enabling them to save as a group or as individuals, by having accounts that earn interest.
The project has so far disbursed loans worth Sh393 million and mobilised Sh91 million in collateral savings by the end of September, impacting the lives of 20,000 Kenyans
“This goes to show how much these services are demanded by our target group and how bankable they are,” Mr Dondo said.
The bank is now aiming to recruit about 390 new groups from these areas, projecting to disburse 16,600 loans worth Sh354 million and mobilise an additional Sh87.7 million in collateral savings.
Those in the programme have also had the advantage of getting business management skills, medical insurance cover and group leadership training.
Other institutions have followed suit in ending the Aids stigma; CfC Life has launched an all-inclusive medical health insurance product dubbed Blue, meant to change how treatment and management of chronic diseases, including HIV and Aids, are handled.
“Insurance companies in the past shied away from covering people with HIV and Aids, as they were perceived to be riskier than healthy individuals and considered susceptible to various ailments, resulting in death within a minimum period of time,” said Mr Ezekiel Owuor, head of sales and marketing CfC Life.
Through the Blue Disease Management Programme, CfC Life will pay for the cost of treatment and medication of the insured persons as the infected are helped to understand the disease and the benefits of adhering to prescribed treatment.
This is a corporate product meant to accommodate people of all income brackets, as long as they are in employment, and their employer willing to take the cover on their behalf. The company says it will be launching an individual version soon.
Even though progress has been slow, many hope discrimination on the basis of one’s HIV status will come to an end, as more institutions see the opportunity rather than a risk. This will save the millions of victims suffering in poverty.
