WE-ACTx

Gender inequities in sexual risks among youth with HIV in Kigali, Rwanda
Understanding the experiences of youth living with HIV (YLH) is necessary for implementing interventions that mitigate HIV transmission. We conducted a survey of sexual behaviours and sources of knowledge among 107 youths aged 16-24 attending two HIV clinics in Kigali, Rwanda.
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Exciting news!  Youth Ending Stigma (Y.E.S.), a youth group committed to ending stigma about HIV in Rwanda, started by WE-ACTx patients, has been named a finalist for the $25,000 Kalamazoo College Global Prize for Collaborative Social Justice Leadership.  Aime Ndorimana, one of the staff of WE-ACTx for Hope and member of Y.E.S. will be in Kalamazoo [...]

Dear friends,
I’m writing you this brief note during a short stay in Rwanda to tell you about two new exciting developments within WE-ACTx  in Rwanda.
The dedicated and enthusiastic WE-ACTx Rwandan staff continues to deliver extraordinarily respectful treatment to over 2300 patients with HIV. The HIV protocol in Rwanda starts patients on regimens similar to those [...]

Dear friends:
Before I share my thoughts and news from this visit to the WE-ACTx project in Rwanda this month, I wanted to thank each and every one of you for your generous big and small end-of-year contributions to WE-ACTx. They all add up, to a sustained and (as you will read) continuously growing and [...]

Dear friends,
Summer is an especially exciting time for the young patients at WE-ACTx here in Kigali. On June 16 we celebrated Day of the African Child (DAC). Over 800 children, youth and family came together to acknowledge how well these young folks who are living with HIV are doing. Everyone received a new green DAC [...]

Dear all: This trip, my daughter, Davida, was in Kigali for the first time, on a fourth year medical school elective. Too exciting! Here’s the report through her eyes:
For the past several years I – and I imagine many of you—have come to expect my mom’s periodic “Kigali report.” It’s hard to believe that I [...]

Dear friends,
Very busy summer in Kigali for WE-ACTx as usual. Our house is bustling with young volunteers, scores of visitors, preparations for new holiday children’s camp in Nyacyonga (the more rural WE-ACTx clinic), counselor training for the new 1 week Nyacyonga and 3 week Centreville youth camps, juggling new income generation programs, preparing youth specific [...]

With Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan and Yemen witnessing earth-shattering changes, and major U.S. cities overwhelmed with snow and budget cuts, I am spending the month in Kigali working with WE-ACTx. Obsessing on the day-to-day problems here feels at times far removed from these major upheavals. But I also sense that there are many small [...]

Dear friends
As we followed the election tensions in Rwanda including the arrests, grenades and murders over the past few months, I worried how things would feel when I returned to Kigali this summer. We were especially concerned, bringing over 8 Chicago high school students. However, for the past few weeks the city has been [...]

It has now been 6 years since WE-ACTx responded to a call by women’s associations to fast track HIV care and medications to their members. So much has changed since then, for me, for those women, for our program, for Rwanda, for global HIV, that it is worth reflecting on what we have accomplished, [...]

Dear friends and supporters,
Five years ago during a conversation with the Minister of Health of Rwanda, I was struck by the contrast of the matching socks, tie and handkerchief worn by this attentive physician, and our experience in the clinic where the women patients had no underpants. We budgeted money for underpants and added their [...]

Dear friends,
Preparing for sharing this update and local Rwandan stories, reminds me that while providing the support and respect each person needs to thrive is a country- and culturally-specific process , in other ways it is truly universal. Thus I hope you have all contacted your representatives in congress to vote for the single [...]

It’s been 6 months since I was in Kigali (a herniated disc got in the way of a scheduled trip last October). There are some noticeable changes. Houses (and the people who used to live in them) have been cleared from certain areas to build hotels and more expensive housing. Too many cars are leaving [...]

This WE-ACTx trip has been filled with incredible sadness and terrific excitement. Two of the WE-ACTx staff (Claudine, a 19 year old peer and data enterer, about to start at the university and Chantel, a 29 year old nurse pharmacist, mother of 3) were killed in a horrific bus accident caused by a UN truck [...]

June has been a very busy month for Kigali. The annual PEPFAR (Presdent’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) 4-day meeting just finished; a large mental health meeting is beginning and WE-ACTx held its second annual African Children’s Day celebration. With a second year of Ronald McDonald House Charities support and continued help from Pediatric AIDS [...]

I traveled to Rwanda this time with Mary Fabri and Mary Black (both from the Kovler Center for the Treatment of the Survivors of Torture) and Maureen Ruder, gynecologist from County Hospital. We stopped in London to meet with the Survivors Fund (SURF), and attend Facing History Ourselves’ event with Romeo Dallaire. WE-ACTx hopes to [...]

Know Your Rights! Children’s Rights Handbook. A handbook on using the law for young people and their advocates.

English
Kinyarwanda

Download the PowerPoint slideshow here:
Slide Show – WE-ACTx in Rwanda

Mardge H. Cohen, MD
Anne-Christine d’Adesky, MS
Kathryn Anastos, MD
Knowing that when we are sick with AIDS, we have no shelter on our head and no school fees for our children, that is what kills us.
Laurence Mukamurangwa
Rwandan Women’s Network
June 7, 2005
IN 2003, RWANDAN WOMEN’S ASSOCIATIONS ISSUED AN international call to aid women who had been raped and
infected [...]