By Dr. Pasquine Ogunsanya | Executive Director and Founder
Dear Friends,
I hope you are all having a wonderful holiday season! Thank you for your continued generosity during the giving season! As we wrap up 2016, we have 10 days until the completion of our Nutrition Support GlobalGivingUK End-Of-Year Fundraising Campaign. You still have a chance to give! Every bit helps us towards receiving bonus prizes of 4,500 GBP from GlobalGivingUK and we are very grateful for your support.
In 2016, our Kapeeka group DOUBLED their number of gardens to a total of 12 gardens. With the help of your continued support, the Kapeeka group hopes to help create a new gardening group in 2017 in Mpuga, a community where HIV/AIDS persists widely. The funds raised on GlobalGiving will enable the Kapeeka group to purchase seeds, fertilizer, gardening tools, water tanks, and travel to Mpuga where they will share their success stories, best gardening practices, and financial skills to inspire a new group of AMS gardeners while building leadership skills and friendships. The Kapeeka group, alongside AMS, cannot wait to start getting our hands dirty in more gardens. Are you with us?
The Kapeeka group’s roots go back to a client namedNakayondo Proscovia, known at AMS as Mama Kapeeka. She, a mother of 4 and grandmother of 3, had been suffering with HIV since 2004 and came to AMS in 2006 as the first person to come to AMS from Kapeeka. During her time at AMS, she told the staff about the number of people suffering from HIV/AIDS in Kapeeka. Together with AMS, Mama Kapeeka decided to refer more people to AMS when she returned to Kapeeka, and these Kapeeka clients eventually formed the psychosocial and income-generation group that is now the Kapeeka group. This group now gardens and sells back to AMS the food that they cultivated in their gardening, allowing them to earn an income. This new positivity in the group’s lives additionally empowered them against HIV/AIDS. Our very own Mama Kapeeka has gone from a CD4 count of 9, to now 860! Now with a low viral load, she is doing well and has withdrawn from the nutrition program so that other clients can benefit. She continues to come to AMS regularly for medicine not only for herself, but also for about 300 others in Kapeeka who are living positively with HIV. “AMS takes care of us so well that if there is any pain at all, they will take care of it. It is just up to us to disclose what we need,” she says. AMS is truly honored to serve community leaders like Mama Kapeeka!
Thank you for your continued generosity and service to our clients, and here is to a beautiful and successful 2017!
With much love from the AMS Family,
Dr Pasquine N Ogunsanya
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