Income Generating Activities for People Living with HIV and AIDS, Mashuru, Kenya

This report highlights Income Generating Activity (IGA) as important component of HIV/AIDS response in developing countries. The report details a project in Kenya that provided income generating support for people living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHAs).The project envisioned the following strategic outcomes:

• Enhanced capacity, especially among youth, to avoid situations and behaviors that drive the HIV/AIDS epidemic;
• Development of health and social systems to enable PLWHAs and their families to live with dignity.

The program trained the target group on basic business principles. The research group used administrative, quantitative and qualitative methods to find out the efficacy of the program.Following are the main findings of the paper:

• Within a year the target population showed improvement in their health and nutrition status;
• Financial stability increased and the PLWHAs were able to create as well as improve assets;
• They were engaged in gainful employment as small traders and reinvested their savings;
• They became active community mobilizers for prevention of HIV/AIDS.

The paper concludes that:

• IGA improved the disposable income of PLWHAs in the Mashura project allowing access to antiretrovirals, improved health and nutrition, restored dignity and self-respect and decreased stigma.
• IGA is an important component of HIV/AIDS response in developing countries where even subsidized antiretrovirals are not affordable to the majority.