We support community health on Mfangano Island, Kenya.
Our focus is on technology, social solidarity, and sustainability.
The Cyber-VCT Pilot:
Mobilizing Enthusiasm for Internet Access to Encourage
HIV Counseling and Testing
Computer and Internet Lessons
The Cyber-VCT Pilot represents an innovative extension of the "Post-Test Club" Model. The Cyber-VCT pilot encourages utilization of HIV testing services by providing access to solar-powered Internet as cover and incentive for participation in a unique Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) Program. This action-oriented research pilot will explore the effectiveness of information technology in improving HIV testing, while simultaneously providing a powerful resource for locally-directed health transformation.
With local and expert input, OHR’s Ekialo Kiona Center has been carefully designed to function as the world's first Cyber-VCT Facility. Extensive ethnographic fieldwork and needs assessments have identified that intense local enthusiasm for Internet can provide a meaningful incentive and a valid excuse for residents to overcome the stigma and scrutiny commonly associated with stand-alone VCT centers in rural Kenyan communities. This “cyber” center is free for use by all club members, predicated solely on bi-annual membership renewal through individualized sessions with a certified VCT counselor. This pilot seeks to activate information technologies to encourage VCT uptake, streamlined treatment referral to FACES clinics, facilitate psycho-social support, and improve health literacy for remote communities across Lake Victoria.
Since the opening of the Ekialo Kiona Center in June 2010, over 1,000 Mfangano residents have been tested and enrolled into this unique "Post-Test Club." The center serves as an invaluable educational workshop facility for students, teachers, health workers, farmers, fisherman and other interested community members. Most importantly, the Cyber-VCT program will serve as the access point to enroll participants into the Micro-Clinic Island Network for People Living with HIV/AIDS.
As the only internet facility or library on the island, the Cyber-VCT program has received an overwhelming amount of local enthusiasm producing the need to increase the computing and Internet capabilities of the EK Center. As a result, OHR has partnered with IT partner Inveneo and Nairobi-based WinAfrique to create a local network of low-power computers wirelessly connected to fiberoptic Internet from the mainland. In July 2011 the EK Center welcomed 10 new Inveneo computers, updating EK's solar power system to support a total of 17 low-power computers. Long range radios will transmit a wireless Internet signal - 50km along a direct line-of-sight - from a transmitting tower to Kisumu, Kenya to a receiving tower at the top of Mfangano Island. While OHR has gained access to a transmitting tower on the mainland, we are currently working to design and construct a 20-meter receiving tower on the top of Mfangano Island.
OHR Welcomes 10 New Inveneo Computers to the Lab! Computer lessons taking place at the EK Center
*OHR has established a research consortium with Oxford University Medical Anthropology, the Kenyan Medical Research Institute (KEMRI), University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Global Health Frameworks Program and UCSF-KEMRI Family AIDS Care and Education Services (FACES) program to design, implement, and scientifically evaluate this pilot.