CCPC has been involved in its health care ministry in Shikokho since 1989.
Since 1989, CCPC has built the Medical Clinic, Nurses' / Doctor's Quarters, and the Maternity Wing all run with solar power. CCPC members visited in 1995 to officially open the clinic with Kenya's Minister of Health. It is the first grass roots rural clinic built in Kenya in partnership with a U.S. church and a local women's group. The Kenyan government holds CCPC's medical effort there as a model for collaboration.
Along with the approximately 1,200 residents of Shikokho, the clinic and maternity facility reaches a walking population of about 30,000. At this level of rural poverty, health insurance is unknown and unaffordable. Small payments for service or gifts to the clinic are received if a family has some means to do so. Otherwise, the care of two government supplied nurses and lab technician are provided without charge. Child welfare classes are provided at the clinic as well as visits to the area schools for vaccinations and educational assistance.
The Shikokho Medical Clinic is a registered national vaccination center. A Family Planning / HIV Advisor has also been operating from the clinic for several years. All other activities of the clinic are provided by volunteer labor and leadership through the Shikokho Women's Group, the local villagers, and CCPC / Shikokho Secondary School scholarship recipients. The village of Shikokho is of the Idakho sub-tribe of the Baluya group of Bantu-speaking people.
Medical opportunities include women and children's primary health care, management of infections, some minor surgery, and educational opportunities in the areas of public health. The clinic is well equipped, the nurses are very experienced and there is backup for complex problems at regional facilities.
Other opportunities include listening and advising at the primary and secondary schools, and with appropriate community, adult education, small business, energy, water and agricultural development.
The village is overwhelmingly Christian--there are a few Moslems in neighboring villages, but not right at Shikokho. There are independent African/Pentecostal Christian congregations, Catholics, and Quakers, with Quakers and Catholics as the largest groups. The clinic is most closely affiliated with the Quaker Church, which is a stone's throw away from the clinic. There are also a number of smaller representations of Church of God, Baptist being the main small Christian group. There are very few people who would claim solely African traditional religion, but many traditional beliefs and practices continue among people who also identify as Christian. Generally, they regard the U.S. as much LESS Christian than they are, and many talk of sending missionaries to the U.S. There is little to no animosity between groups -- all the various religious groups get along well and do not compete with each other, nor do they condemn or verbally attack or criticize each other. In colonial times, the British divided mission work by geography with one Protestant group and one Catholic order per area. Shikokho got Quakers and the Mill Hill Mission Fathers.
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