A young, energetic graduate responds to a call to volunteer her time and skills as an HIV peer educator and it becomes a life saver even though it did not appear so at that time.

Then 27 years old and newly married, Ihe Nkeiru had just completed the University and was ready to undertake her national youth service. During the orientation UNICEF appealed to the “Corpers”, as these service persons are nicknamed, to volunteer to be trained as HIV&AIDS peer educators. Ihe heeded the call and volunteered to be trained as an HIV&AIDS peer educator. After the training, the peer educators were asked to undergo voluntary counseling and testing as a way of knowing their status and to be able to convince people about the importance of knowing one’s status through voluntary counseling and testing.

It was this gesture that saved her health and life however devastating the news was at that time, Ihe tested positive to the HIV virus. She was devastated and did not know what to do or how to handle the situation. Luckily for her the counselor who had counseled her during the voluntary counseling and testing process was Doris Brenda the ardent HIV&AIDS activist and founder of “Heal the Land”, an HIV&AIDS support group.

Doris applied to the National Youth Service Corps and requested for Ihe to serve her time with “Heal the Land” as a peer educator. With counseling and support from Doris and the support group at “Heal the Land”, Ihe was able to learn strategies to live positively. Ihe completed her National Service with “Heal the land” and gained employment with the organization as an accountant, having graduated with a Bsc Accounting from the University.

Ms Ihe Nkeiru was one of 10 “Corpers” who won awards in Akwa Ibom State in 2008 for working assiduously on the prevention of HIV&AIDS and training secondary school students on HIV&AIDS issues. As a national service person she used her service allowance to purchase multi vitamins which she donated to people living with HIV&AIDS accessing health care services at the University of Oyo teaching hospital.

With her husband living outside the country at the time she tested positive Ihe had not disclosed her status to him or to any other person outside ‘Heal the Land”. When her husband visited about a year and a half after she had tested positive she had the task of disclosing her status to him. It was so difficult that she had to call her counselor and mentor Doris to help her with the disclosure. Upon disclosing her status to her husband he appeared to have received the news calmly was initially supportive until she fell ill a month later with TB. That was the beginning of her woes, her husband’s attitude changed towards her and he finally abandoned her at home and never came back. Then the tough issue of disclosing her status to a family member arose. With the support of her counselor again, Ihe broke the news to her brother who was very understanding and supportive. Her brother travelled for miles to see her when she suffered a partial stroke and had nobody with her, he asked the hospital where she was receiving treatment to transfer her to a bigger hospital near his home where she received the best of care. When she got better her brother took her to his home and nursed her till she was well enough to go back to work.

Today Ihe is well and helping to run “Heal the Land”, a support group of about 50 women living with HIV&AIDS, as well as undertaking outreach programmes to very remote villages in the State of Akwa Ibom of Nigeia where she provides much needed information on HIV&AIDS as well as caring for those living with HIV&AIDS.

Ihe is determined and passionate about touching and saving lives. She believes that women should equip themselves to face life. In her mind’s eye, young women especially need to equip themselves to face the future especially with all the advancement and turbulence being encountered in the world now.

AWDF supports “Heal the Land” to provide skills training to women living with HIV&AIDS as well as deepen awareness around HIV&AIDS issues. With the support of AWDF, “Heal the Land” has trained treatment literacy/adherence counselors, two of whom are permanently stationed at the St. Luke’s hospital and formed an HIV&AIDS club at one of the project Communities, Mbo in the Oron local government Area of the State of Akwa Ibom to provide continuous HIV awareness in the community.

By: Beatrice Boakye Yiadom

Grants Manager, AWDF