Health - HIV/AIDS and SRH

This program encompasses all activities of the organization related to HIV/AIDS prevention and control, Sexual and Reproductive Health services and education, Harmful Customary Practices (HCPs) that impact the health and dignity of women, girls, and the marginalized Fuga communities.  Provision of maternal and child health services, including Obstetrics Gynecology, VCT, PMTCT, family planning and related services at the Mother and Child health center is among the key areas of intervention particularly in Kembatta Tembaro Zone. These are highly encouraged by the Ethiopian Government policies such as the 16 health packages of the health policy and Women and Youth Development packages.


Reproductive Health & HIV/AIDS are both taboo subjects, and one of Ethiopia’s sobering development challenges.

Considered a shameful, “sinner’s disease,” HIV/AIDS was never mentioned aloud in the Kembatta /Tembaro community when KMG began in 1999. In Ethiopia, HIV/AIDS primary transmission modes are through heterosexual sex, and gender-based power relationships; the virus affects women disproportionately. KMG focused on breaking the silence and mitigating the disease. In 2002, KMG was selected by the U.N. Development Program to pilot a social mobilization tool against HIV/AIDS in Ethiopia, called Community Capacity Enhancement-Community Conversation (CCE-CC). This methodological framework helps to mobilize communities to critically and honestly review their long-held beliefs and customs. CCE-CC enables them to reach consensus, and make informed decisions for positive change.

KMG has established Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) services for all, and Care and Support services for people affected and impacted with the virus. Currently, in all our operational areas, attitudinal change and transformation is taking place. People travel in groups to have HIV tests; marriage without HIV/AIDS testing is unacceptable in both Christian and Moslem communities.

In 2004, the National government adopted KMG methodologies and launched them nationally: KMG was contracted to train all HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Offices in the region.  KMG developed the first manual for CCE-CC training, and today, this tool is the primary means used for prevention and control of the disease in the country.

Female genital mutilation and the lack of reproductive health care facilities have proven a lethal mix for generations of women in rural Ethiopia. Throughout the country, men can be seen carrying their pregnant wives and sisters on handmade litters as they seek emergency medical care. Too often women die in labor, with perfectly healthy babies unable to emerge from the birth canal due to genitalia scarred and shut by FGM.

To reduce maternal and child mortality and morbidity, in 2004 KMG established the Mother and Child Health Center (MCH), the first of its kind in the region. The MCH provides obstetrics and gynecology, pre/post natal care, VCT, prevention of mother to child transmissions (PMCT), family planning, basic health and hygiene, and other reproductive health education and services at Durame, the capital of Kembatta Tembaro Zone.