Author: Anthony Rume

By Joyce Chimbi Nairobi, Kenya: Growing up, Njoki ‘Kijo’ believed that her options in life were limited. By the age of 10, she had already lost her mother and was living in Kosovo, in the sprawling informal settlements of Mathare, with her grandmother, when danger came disguised as opportunity. Sixteen and out of school, her family barely making it in a fragile cycle of hand-to-mouth, she joined a group of young women, and together, they ventured into Nairobi’s nightlife. This was 15 years ago. Still a child, her life in Nairobi’s red-light district began where 9 percent of female sex…

New modeling shows that 40 million more children will suffer from hunger’s worst effects by 2050 due to climate change, but immediate action could boost health and spur economic growth. By Daniel Otunge In the 2024 Goalkeepers Report released today, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation urges world leaders to increase global health spending where it is needed most to boost children’s health and nutrition, especially in the face of the global climate crisis. The Goalkeepers report, “A Race to Nourish a Warming World,” projects that without immediate global action, climate change will condemn 40 million more children to stunting…

The Gates Foundation’s eighth annual Goalkeepers report, which reveals new insights into the world’s worst child health crisis – malnutrition, was launched today. The 2024 Goalkeepers Report calls for increased investments to prioritize nutrition for a healthier future. It notes that malnutrition is the world’s worst health problem, and recent estimations have demonstrated that when a child dies, malnutrition is the underlying cause half the time. The report predicts that by 2050, climate change will condemn nearly 40 million more children to stunting and 28 million more to wasting. The Goalkeepers Report explores the simple solutions the Foundation is helping…

By Steve Nsamaza At 61 years old, Faustine Habimana wakes up at five every day to milk his cows, feed his chickens, and care for his family. His primary focus is farming his four-hectare land in Cyeru Cell, Ruhuha Sector in Bugesera District, Eastern Rwanda. With Theresa, his wife, Habimana is one of the most successful poultry farmers in this remote rural village. He transitioned from subsistence farming with a mere Rwf.500,000 (about $372) from family savings. Habimana’s journey from a struggling farmer plagued by peptic ulcers to a healthy, thriving farmer began when he started making savings from personal…

By Fidelis Kabunyi About 20 years ago, the administrators of a nursery school in Kiambu County were surprised when a woman brought an autistic child and dumped him there. She insisted that the teachers remain with the child for the day so that she could do some manual jobs in the neighborhood. This became a daily occurrence. Soon, more parents with special needs children followed suit. The Catholic Church’s Daughters of Charity lay group founded the nursery school to serve rural Ndeiya, Kiambu County. Sister Rhoda Mose, an administrator in the school, says they later learned that Neuro and physical…

By Clifford Akumu Siaya County, Kenya: On a chilly Monday morning, tens of pregnant women, girls, and breastfeeding mothers went to Randago Dispensary in Alego-Usonga, Siaya County, for their routine clinic visits to receive medical attention. Their gaze was occasionally interrupted by the steady flow of patients to the facility and the constant movement of healthcare professionals and promoters brandishing medical paraphernalia. At the pediatric section, I met Veronica Akinyi, who was going through a list of names on a hard-cover booklet inscribed ‘PMTCT Appointment Diary.’ Occasionally, she would counter-check with the facility’s digital patient management system on her hand-held…

By Agatha Ngotho Cooking should be enjoyable and support life, but not so for hundreds of women and girls in rural Kenya, who often undergo the ordeal of using firewood to make food for their families. Rosalia Amweya’s story tells it all. Her health suffered heavily, she says, from the smoke she constantly inhaled for hours daily while cooking on a traditional three-stone cooking stove, oblivious to the danger she was exposing herself to. Like most women from Ichingo village in Kakamega county, where she lives, the 73-year-old grandmother says the deadly carbon monoxide she inhaled made her life miserable.…

By Fidelis Kabunyi About 20 years ago, the administrators of a nursery school in Kiambu County were surprised when a woman brought an autistic child and dumped him there. She insisted that the teachers remain with the child for the day so that she could do some manual jobs nearby. This became a daily occurrence. Soon, more parents with special needs children followed suit. The Catholic Church’s Daughters of Charity lay group founded the nursery school to serve rural Ndeiya. Sister Rhoda Mose, an administrator at the school, says they later learned that neuro and physical disabilities were rampant in…

By Emily Chebet It is a chilly and rainy morning in the capital Nairobi, Everline Alivisa must brace for the cold weather to attend dialysis, a session that nothing or no one can stop. The 38 year old mother of three is battling end-stage kidney disease after she was diagnosed with kidney failure 7years ago. She has only two options, dialysis or a kidney transplant. The trips to hospital for dialysis sessions is a routine that Everline has familiarized herself with, she must be on dialysis for four hours twice a week. Kidney disease comes with multiple challenges like swollen…

By Joyce Chimbi Nairobi, Kenya: Phena Nyamatu stares ahead, apprehensive, speaking in hashed tones as if the horrid past were only a bad nightmare—afraid that saying the words out loud would turn a bad dream buried back in February 2019 into a painful reality. She is reaching for memories of her niece, a bouncing baby girl whose only anomaly was appearing to have been born with teeth. She explained how her highly alarmed family turned to the designated traditional birth attendant (TBA) in Mombasa Raha, an informal settlement in Nairobi’s Mathare Area. The TBA’s only qualification was successfully self-delivering her…