These Are the People We Serve
Every number has a face. Every face has a story. These are the women, men, and children of Kilifi, our community. We share their stories with deep respect and with their knowledge, because the world needs to understand why this health center must be built.
They Are Strong. They Are Resilient. And They Have Been Carrying This Alone for Too Long.
These are the women of Kilifi, mothers holding newborns, young women supporting each other, daughters caring for children that are not theirs because someone in the family has no one else. They gather. They show up. They survive.
Many carry stories they have not shared, stories of violence, of loss, of things that should never have happened. They carry them with extraordinary strength and in near-total silence, because there has never been anyone to tell, and nowhere safe to go.
These women have never had a mental health screening. Many have never seen a doctor. No one has ever asked how they are doing, not as a mother, not as a patient, and not as a human being who has been through something terrible.
OCHADPAF will be the first to ask. And to listen. We will provide psychiatric care, counseling, and a safe, confidential space, including specialized psychotherapy for survivors of rape, gender-based violence, and trauma. This is the community we serve. This is who we build for.
She Has Not Seen a Doctor. There Is No Way to Get There.
This is one of the women we serve in Kilifi. Her legs are swollen. Her skin shows the signs of a condition that has gone untreated for far too long. She is not avoiding care. There simply is no way to reach it.
There is no diagnostic facility in her area. Even if there were, the hours of travel across unpaved roads cost money her family does not have. No ultrasound has ever been done. No blood work. No doctor has ever examined those legs. She waits. The condition worsens. She waits.
The OCHADPAF Center will bring the diagnostics directly to the community, ultrasound, X-ray, laboratory services, so that no woman in Kilifi has to sit in pain simply because a clinic is too far away.
He Was Injured by an Elephant. He Has Never Had an X-Ray.
This is a father and these are his children. They live in this mud-brick home, and they depend on him entirely. He smiles for the photograph, but behind that smile is a back that has never healed since he was injured by an elephant. No X-ray. No scan. No diagnosis of any kind.
He manages the chronic pain the only way he knows: by pushing through it, every single day, for the children who need him. The walls of their home are cracked. There is no clean running water. But he keeps going.
The OCHADPAF diagnostic center will give this father, and the thousands of others like him, a real answer about what is wrong, and access to the care that can help him manage it and keep caring for his family.
This Is the Only Latrine She Has. It Is Falling Down. She Cannot Build Another.
This small structure, sticks, rusted metal, a tattered cloth hanging as a door, is an elderly woman's only latrine. She does not have the physical strength or the financial means to rebuild it. It is collapsing around her.
When it is completely gone, open defecation becomes the only option. And with it: cholera, typhoid, and the preventable diseases that spread quietly and kill children before they reach their fifth birthday. This is not just poverty. This is a healthcare crisis hiding in plain sight, and it is the reality for many families across Kilifi.
OCHADPAF's community health programs directly connect sanitation, hygiene education, and communicable disease prevention, training local health workers and partnering with agencies to address the conditions that make illness inevitable.
These Stories Are Why We Build
The woman with swollen legs waiting for a doctor that never comes. The father with an unhealed back raising his children alone. The mothers carrying untold stories. The latrine that is falling down. These are not unusual cases in Kilifi, they are the everyday reality for hundreds of thousands of people. Help us build the center that will change this.
Stories shared with community knowledge and with deep respect for the dignity of every person shown.