It's That Time of the Year Again

Dear Friends,

If I could sum up our activities this past 11 months with two words, I would say 'Strategic Partnerships'!! So much has happened at K'arale that brings us ever closer to our mission of bringing quality health to the hard to reach.

We collaborated with various organisations and institutions that enabled us extend our services and make impact in lives.

With AIDS Preventive Initiative Nigeria(APIN) to serve and support 180 Children orphaned by HIV/AIDS in 6 local governments in Lagos in an OVC project. K’arale was chosen because of our excellent track record, accountability capability and committed staff. The 6+ core services provided include – Education and vocational training, Protection/legal, Shelter, Psychosocial, Nutritional, Health and Economic strengthening.

With PrimaryHealth Centers (Iru, Epe, Ibeju Lekki, Apapa, Lagos Island) in our designated Local Government Areas in order to reach out to their HIV/AIDS support groups and to the children.

So far we have enrolled 136 kids in this project. These are children between 18mths - 17 years who have lost one or both parents to AIDS. We support the family and monitor their progress through home visits, school visits and monthly Kiddies Club meetings.

With Lagos State Ministry of Education for approval to carry out HIV prevention peer education projects with students in senior secondary classes.

We have collaborated with APIN to provide HIV testing services and train over 150 willing prisoners as HIV peer educators in Ikoyi prisons, Lagos
We have trained over 100 young girls in a Remand home in Surulere on HIV/AIDS prevention.

Thanks to the generosity of you, K'arale friends, We are almost through with our first PortaKlinic situated at Kuramo.

We have many challenges ahead of us as we wrap up the year and prepare for the next year - Getting funding to finish our PortaKlinic ready, Increase government cooperation, pay overheads, resolving the myriad needs of our OVC. But with your continued support, I am confident that we're up to the task at hand.

We especially wish to express our heartfelt appreciation to:

Guaranty Trust Assurance Plc

AIDS Prevention Initiative Nigeria

Chief and Mrs Mabogunje

Chief Ajibola Ogunsola

Chief Gbolade Osibodu

AO & A Associates

Mrs Betty Obere of Living Fountain Orphanage Home
Mrs Toki Mabogunje of TMC
OR Series Ltd
Medical Coordinators in the Epe/Iru/Ibeju lekki/Apapa Primary Health Centers
To the Children and Families who have put their trust in us and let us into their homes and hearts, 
Friends and well wishers,
Our dear Trustees and Staff,

Without you, we wouldn't have made it this far.

On a joyful note, our dear founder and Chairman Sade Ogunsola celebrated her birthday recently. Here's wishing her a year filled with the same joy she brings to others! Happy Birthday Prof!

If you are still wondering why you should sow a seed in K'arale this December, here are two reasons -

Today is World AIDS Day. Do your bit to Stop the spread of AIDS in your community. Give to K'arale.

Today is the 1st day of Christmas. A season of joy and giving. Give to K'arale.

Karale's account number with Guaranty Trust Bank Plc is 230 681575 110. No amount is too much. There's so much still to be done… and we need you to make it happen!!

Thank you and have a blessed Yuletide Season from all of us!

African Leaders and their First Ladies tackle Maternal, Child Health

On the 18th of July 2010 in Kampala, Uganda, the Ugandan First Lady, Janet Kataha Museveni presided over an important session of the meeting of African First Ladies, devoted to the theme of the debate that their powerful husbands had just concluded on “Promoting Maternal, Infant and Child Health and Development in Africa".

The move was seen as a strategic success and welcome to governments and organizations promoting maternal and child health in Africa, because African First Ladies have traditionally focused their work on HIV and AIDS through their umbrella organization: Organisation for African First Ladies Against AIDS (OAFLA).
Ms Thoraya Obaid, UNFPA’s Executive Director, one of the keynote speakers at the event, thinks it has been a mistake to think of maternal and child health matters as

Cash Rewards as an HIV prevention strategy

By Alex Ogle, Yahoo! News

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The World Bank released two studies Sunday linking cash payments to Malawian and Tanzanian youths with "significantly lower" rates of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections.

In the first study, a two-year program rewarded young girls in Malawi, rife with poverty and high HIV infection rates, with cash payments for regular school attendance. In Tanzania, the Bank paid young adults in cash to avoid unsafe sex.

The studies "show the potential for using cash payments to prevent people, especially women and girls, from engaging in unsafe sex while also ensuring that they stay in school and

From the 18th AIDS Conference in Vienna

In the beautiful city of Vienna, Austria between 23-28 July 2010 AIDS activists, researchers, decision makers, scientists, policy makers, grassroots workers and people living with HIV gathered for a structured dialogue regarding the major issues on the global response to HIV/AIDS – a disease that has killed more than 25 million people. The theme of the conference which was the 18th since the outbreak of AIDS epidemic in the early 80s was “Rights Here, Rights Now”.

What happened in Vienna 2010 (AIDS 2010)

The AIDS 2010 conference theme emphasizes the central importance of protecting and promoting human rights as a prerequisite to a successful response to HIV. The right to

Cure for AIDS on the way

In the news, there are encouraging reports about 2 breakthroughs in the search for a treatment to reverse the trend of the deadly AIDS virus.

The latest is the Anti-AIDS gel – a vaginal gel which has proved capable of blocking the AIDS virus thus cutting by 50% a woman’s chances of getting HIV from a partner. The gel, spiked with the AIDS drug tenofovir, cut the risk of HIV infection by

Can We Talk about Abstinence and Contraception OR Is It a Mixed Message?

I came across this article written by Konstance McCaffree, Ph.D. Adjunct Professor, Center for Education Sexuality Program, Widener University and thought I should share it with you. Parents care about their children and want them to grow up healthy and safe. They want their children to avoid an unplanned teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, and HIV. Some want their children to avoid sexual intercourse or other sexual behaviors until they are old enough to make good, informed, and responsible decisions. Others want their children to wait

Tackling plastic waste

In Ghana's capital, Accra, the streets are choked with trash and littered with plastic waste that blocks gutters and clogs storm drains. Drinking water comes in sachets that cost a few cents. Cheap and convenient, they are sold in shops and by street hawkers. But once they have been drunk they are often simply dropped on the ground. When British entrepreneur Stuart Gold saw Accra's plastic problem he recognized an opportunity for a business venture — an NGO that could clean up the streets and create jobs in the community. His idea was to collect discarded sachets, Two-and-a-half years later, Trashy Bags makes around 250 items a week and produces 350 different designs of bags, wallets and raincoats.

Do you live in a Slum?

"Migrants from impoverished hinterlands, living without security, public health, and, often, clean water in the shantytowns of São Paulo, Lagos, Karachi, Dhaka, and Jakarta, have as much in common with each other as "People Like Us"–the global class of businessmen, journalists, academics, and anti-terrorism experts–do among themselves." –Pankaj Mishra, Bombay: The Lower Depths, New York Review of Books, November 18, 2004.

Lagos as a whole has been dubbed 'a slum' by foreign journalists that is, if we check her characteristics against UN’s operational definition[3]: a human settlement in an urban area that has the following characteristics:

Health: The best gift you can give

K’arale had her first fundraiser to benefit our PortaKlinic Project last Sunday, the 18^th of April, 2010. This first project benefits Kuramo especially; a slum community living on the coastline here in Lagos by providing Quality basic health Services through the clinic.

The event was pretty formal and guests; largely made up of family and close friends of K’arale management numbered 30. It was an opportunity to tell a larger audience about our dream of quality health for the poor and how we hope to achieve it.


Kuramo is a community most dear to K’arale. I have written about

Changemakers competition

Dear Friend of K’arale,

K’arale participated in the Changemakers competition “Healthy Mothers, Strong World”. A competition which sought for the next generation of innovative, sustainable and impactful solutions for Maternal/Child Health.

It was an opportunity for us to sell our PortaKlinic idea to a panel of judges, connect with fellow entrants and find out what they are doing in the field. A single PortaKlinic can serve 10,000 people per annum. If we are shortlisted