Kenya

In 1969, Pathfinder partnered with government and organizations in Kenya to establish quality family planning services. Five years later, we opened our country office in Nairobi and have provided continuous service ever since.

With our in-country partners, Pathfinder has trained 540 workers to scale up the workforce to ensure poor, underserved communities have access to reproductive health care. Here a group of community health workers gather in Nairobi.

Today, in response to Kenya’s high prevalence of HIV, Pathfinder builds the capacity of local partners to integrate critical services—HIV and AIDS services with reproductive health care—for the most vulnerable and hard-to-reach Kenyans.

Pathfinder project director, David Adriance, put it this way: “Our project works in the northern 60 percent of Kenya, where the average distance a client must walk to reach a health facility is more than 30-40 miles…”

“In conditions like these, the provision of health care through outreach services can mean the difference between life or death.” In remote villages and urban centers, Pathfinder is finding innovative ways to reach Kenyans with care they need.

Why Pathfinder Works in Kenya

Kenya has a long history of providing some of the most successful family planning programs in Africa. Despite Kenya’s significant track record with family planning services, one out of every four married women still report an unmet need for family planning. This unmet need for family planning results in demand for services and access to contraceptives, placing tremendous strain on government health systems. These systems are already stretched to meet the needs of the country's population of people living with HIV and AIDS, which is the fourth largest in the world.

Pathfinder has supported reproductive health and family planning work in Kenya since 1969. By working closely with nongovernmental and community-based organizations, government agencies, and public and private sector institutions, Pathfinder has reached some of Kenya’s poorest communities with reproductive health information and services, including contraceptives and counseling in maternal and child health care.

Recently, Pathfinder’s work in Kenya has responded to the country’s high rate of HIV infection, currently estimated at 6.3 percent among adults and at 8 percent among women. Today, Pathfinder integrates HIV and AIDS prevention and care with quality reproductive health and family planning activities, bringing health services to the most vulnerable women who are least likely to have access to quality care.

Evidence for Decision-Making

A key aspect of Pathfinder’s approach to systems’ strengthening is collecting evidence that enables public, private, and community partners to make informed health-related decisions. In Kenya, examples of the kinds of evidence Pathfinder collects range from “the number of counseling visits for family planning and reproductive health services” and “the number of households trained on village savings and loan activities” to “the number of clients with advanced HIV infection newly enrolled in antiretroviral therapy.” Some illustrative data from Pathfinder’s work between January 2010 and December 2011 in Kenya include:

• 4,011 HIV-positive pregnant women in Coast Province and 1,693 in Nairobi Province received antiretroviral treatment to reduce risk of mother-to-child transmission
• 82,085 children were provided with education and/or vocational training
• 331,058 individuals in Coast Province and 218,321 in Nairobi Province received testing and counseling services for HIV and received their test results

Building Capacity, Strengthening Systems

Pathfinder works in close partnership with over 250 NGOs, community-based organizations, government agencies, and public and private sector institutions to carry out health programming in Kenya. In the past year, Pathfinder has increased the capacity of health workers to provide quality health services while at the same strengthening the government’s community outreach strategy. By encouraging local ownership of project activities, data monitoring, and project evaluation, Pathfinder is supporting the long-term sustainability of integrated programming and services in the communities where we work.

Through the USAID-funded APHIAplus project, Pathfinder supports the development of sustainable health systems to ensure equitable access to a wide range of health services. The project builds capacity of managers, health care providers and community based health workers and provides technical assistance in continuous improvement of service delivery.

Reaching More People

Pathfinder believes in the importance of not only working within existing structures, but also in developing innovative approaches to reach more people. For example, Pathfinder has pioneered community efforts to identify and train male champions who promote family planning and campaign against gender-based violence.

To reach pregnant women and encourage them to attend antenatal clinics and deliver at the hospitals, Pathfinder is working with community health workers and traditional birth attendants to support expectant mothers as birth companions. Pathfinder also trains community health works to provide quality reproductive health and family planning services, including youth and male-friendly services.

Through our activities, Pathfinder is promoting sexual and reproductive health care among women, men, adolescents, as well as key populations such as orphaned and vulnerable children, men who have sex with men, intravenous drug users, and sex workers. The ultimate goal is to ensure access to readily accessible, equitable, and quality health services for all people in Kenya.