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WEEP Works!

Watch Video - Africa HEART WEEP Center by Allison Reynolds

HEART is a Christian faith-based non-profit (501 (c) 3) organization

The focus of HEART is to empower the people of Africa to survive the HIV/AIDS pandemic through facilitating integrated collaborative projects such as: HIV prevention education messages combating the spread of HIV/AIDS, TB, Malaria, and Typhoid; developing economic infrastructure, gender equality, leadership development, and building capacity for good governance and by working closely with local leaders (teachers, pastors, chiefs etc.) in establishing “Community Based Organizations” (CBO) at the grass roots level.

HEART assists these CBO’s to launch sustainable micro-enterprise projects which empower those affected by HIV/AIDS to care for themselves, and the orphaned and vulnerable children of their families and villages.

HEART is a registered TRUST in Kenya and has a fully qualified board of Kenyan Trustees who work with the American counterpart of HEART a 501 C-3 organization comprised of health professionals and concerned business leaders.

WEEP - Women's Empowerment Equality Project

As an orphan prevention initiative, WEEP empowers women that are with HIV/AIDS.

Our project saves the lives of mothers suffering from advanced stages of AIDS; therefore, their children are spared from becoming orphans. Operating in impoverished areas, WEEP identifies mothers who have been widowed or abandoned.

WEEP commits to providing medical care, nutrition, vitamins, rent assistance and access to ARV drugs; it also assures that their children have school uniform and other necessary resources to attend school. Once physically stable, the mother is taught a trade at a WEEP center where she becomes self sufficient and breaks through the impoverished cycle.

NEWS: (click for PDF)  Caris Foundation funded HEART by choosing Twana Twitu’s orphaned recipients to receive these uniforms and having our WEEP ladies make the uniforms …thereby generating income for the WEEP households … a double giving by Caris Foundation!  Orphans received the uniforms, and the women of WEEP earned income for their households through the work of their hands!

In a country where the unemployment is estimated to be close to 70%, a job allows the WEEP women to provide for their families in a way that would be impossible without this project. Beyond the devastatingly high unemployment level, the lack of information and the stigma associated with AIDS make it nearly impossible for an HIV positive woman to secure employment, support her children, or access ARV drugs. WEEP’s objective is to keep mom alive, healthy, and employed and her vulnerable children from becoming orphaned.

Program Successes

Our WEEP project was chosen by USAID to be visited by Dr Jill Biden and her children and granddaughter, while Vice President Joe Biden was with the President of Kenya. Dr Jill was great greeted each woman personally and made these women feel so special.

Five organizations working with orphans and vulnerable children traveled to Kenya from, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia and Mozambique to visit HEART in 2010 to learn our methods of working with the women, and model this project.

Opportunities For You To Help

$900 supports a woman and her children for 18 months while she gets treatment … and gets prepared for starting her own business.

$10 will purchase malaria prevention net.

$30 will buy a uniform for an orphaned child – the WEEP ladies make the uniforms and sustain their families by selling the uniforms.

$6,000 will help open a new center.