HIV/AIDS has affected Kenyan communities for more than four decades, and while significant progress has been made in treatment and prevention, the disease continues to place a heavy burden on families, particularly in lower-income urban and peri-urban areas. Beyond the medical challenges, individuals living with HIV often face stigma, isolation, and disruptions to their livelihoods that compound the difficulty of managing a chronic illness.
The Eastern Deanery AIDS Relief Program, supported by Maryknoll, has served as a comprehensive resource for individuals and families affected by HIV/AIDS in Kenya. The program provides life-saving antiretroviral treatment, HIV testing and counseling, maternal healthcare aimed at preventing mother-to-child transmission, prevention education, and spiritual support for patients and their families.
This ministry has embodied the Catholic Social Teaching principles of the Life and Dignity of the Human Person and the Option for the Poor and Vulnerable, treating each patient as someone made in God’s image regardless of diagnosis or social stigma. It reflects the Maryknoll charism of long-term presence among the suffering, remaining steadfastly alongside communities through decades of an epidemic that many other institutions have long since stopped discussing.
Gifts to this project sustain a program that has provided consistent, compassionate care to some of Kenya’s most vulnerable communities for over thirty years, helping ensure that life-saving treatment and support remain available to those who need it most.
