The Society for Women
and AIDS in Kenya (SWAK) is a national women’s
organisation affiliated to the Society for Women
and AIDS in Africa (SWAA). SWAK was registered
in August 1996 as a non-governmental organisation
with its National Secretariat based in Nairobi
with a mandate to preventing and mitigating the
impact of HIV/AIDS among women and girls in Kenya.
Founded in 1988, SWAA
is a pioneer pan-African non-profit women’s
organisation with its headquarters in Dakar,
Senegal and covers thirty-nine national offices
throughout Africa. SWAK is one of the thirty
nine country chapters. The founders of SWAA
believed that African women would ultimately
be a major target of HIV/AIDS epidemic as a
result of gender inequality, poverty and difficult
social and cultural environment in which they
live.
SWAA seeks to work
towards achieving a world free of HIV/AIDS,
where women and children are empowered to claim
equal rights, access to health care, education
and social economic opportunities. Its mission
is to advocate on behalf of women, children
and families in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
It mobilises communities by strengthening capacity
to prevent, control and mitigate the impact
of the epidemic.
The National Societies
affiliated to SWAA are semi-autonomous and develop
programmes at the grassroots level where local
NGOs, women groups and communities are involved
in the design and implementation of projects.
National societies are involved in the governance
of SWAA through the General Assembly. At the
technical level, national coordinators of SWAA
country societies are in regular contact and
communication with the SWAA Executive Office.
The National Societies
of SWAA, of which SWAK is one, play an important
role of operationalising SWAA objectives at
individual country level. The SWAA objectives,
as articulated in its constitution include:
• To sensitise,
educate and raise the level of awareness of
African Women especially rural women, in matters
concerning HIV/AIDS related problems
• To undertake AIDS control activities
that are acceptable to African Women based on
their social-cultural background
• To examine, formulate and support HIV/AIDS
control programmes for women in Africa
• To examine ways and means of working
with, inter-alia, established women’s
organisations, international institutions, national
AIDS control programmes in their activities.
SWAK, as an affiliate
of SWAA, was founded on the same principles
and seeks to promote and operationalise both
the vision and objectives of SWAA in Kenya.
It operates as a membership organisation, with
members working on a volunteer basis to implement
its activities at the community level. Membership
is open to women of all social-economic categories.
Men participate as associate members. SWAK membership
has grown over the last six years to over 8000.
SWAK has a lean national
secretariat to provide leadership and technical
support to the members at branch level. Support
provided by the secretariat includes fundraising,
programme management, monitoring and evaluation
and liaising with donors. At the governance
level, SWAK has an executive board at the national
level providing strategic leadership. At the
branch level, members have constituted management
committees that oversee and implement SWAK strategies.
The committees are supported by a project officer
in each branch.
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