Success Stories — UNDP in Nepal

Search


 

Special Initiatives


E-Newsletter


Subscribe for
UNDP Nepal Newsletters.

Click here to unsubscribe
Home » Success Stories

Success Stories


Helping women to begin a new life

Date07-03-2007
Focus AreaHIV/AIDS
ProgramUNDP Management Support to National HIV/AIDS Programme
 

“Learn to demand for your rights than asking for participation only”, says Purnima*. Her clarion call to all the HIV positive women is that— “do not let yourself be a victim of society and its misconceptions that HIV positive women are bad. You can be a change agent in the society if only you have a strong will power to live and save others.”

Neat rooms with beds for thirteen, a small kitchen, cosy dining room and spacious complex to give privacy to the crisis patients— this has become a world of Purnima. She enjoys her work immensely.

Recalling her trauma of being infected by her own husband and undergoing a series of humiliation from her own family and society, Purnima had to take shelter in one of the rehabilitation homes in Kathmandu. “When both of us started falling sick we discovered that both of us were HIV positive but the family doubted me instead of their son, above all my husband did not even bother to find me when I left my house in search of support.”

Purnima was lucky to find other women in the rehabilitation centre who had the same desire— to live. Together they formed a small support group to start supporting the positive women. Life was not easy; women who were positive did not come out in open but were in desperately in need of help. This small support group tried to do everything possible and finally in May 2004 registered themselves as an NGO.

To date, the NGO has already given support to 280 women which includes counselling at home and in the centre, facilitating medical checkups for positive women, providing emergency crisis services (transportation, check ups, referrals, shelter for 21 days) to women. They have a network to bring in HIV positive women from remote areas who often lose their chances of survival either because of ignorance or because they choose to remain hidden due to fear of stigma and discrimination. Purnima confirms that most of the cases she has received are women who got HIV because they were trafficked or the virus was transmitted through their husbands.

The NGO has received support from UNDP Management Support to National HIV/AIDS Programme, DFID and Family Health International/ USAID. Besides the capital Kathmandu, it has its branches in other parts of the country such as Makawanpur, Pokhara, Chitwan, Accham and Butwal.

For future expansion of her noble work, Purnima desires that these positive women should be provided with some kind of trainings for developing income generating skills or even computer training. She wishes to focus on those in most need of assistance— women who have children also with them. “We need enough funds to reach all the needy women”, says she.

Purnima may be HIV positive herself but now her dreams are set, her vision is clear and she rides on her hope that the world for HIV positive women will be better with increased understanding, care and support from society.

(* The name ‘Purnima’ is a changed name)

For more information pls. contact Mohammed Siddig, Programme Manager, 00-977-1-5523200/1500 or Sangita Khadka, UNDP Nepal Development Communications Officer, 00-977-1-5523200/1077


^ Back to top

Feedback . Copyrights & Terms of Use . Site Map