The Luyando Women Group is a group comprising women with different backgrounds, education and skills. These women live within the local community where the group is active. They are local mothers, grandmothers, sisters, daughters and aunts who feel strongly responsible to improve the social and economic wellbeing of their communities. Luyando Women’s group has continued to perfect their crafts. The women have also maintained the total number of members of the group. They are 15 members of Luyando Women. These women are trained in several basic surviving skills such as making Beads and handbags made of cycled polythene plastic bags and other crafts. The women have also involved in health HIV related services.  

 

 

            BASIC SURVIVING SKILLS FOR THE WOMEN

 

Luyando Women’s group has continued to perfect their crafts. The women have also maintained the total number of members of the group. They are 15 members of Luyando Women. These women are trained in several basic surviving skills such as making Beads and handbags made of cycled polythene plastic bags and other crafts. The women have also involved in health HIV related services. These include services such as HIV door to door home visit.

 

 

THE WOMEN ARE ENGAGED IN VARIOUS BASIC SURVIVING SKILLS SUCH AS: 

 

 

• Food Processing
• Candle making
• Honey processing
• Baking
• Cooking oil making
• Peanut butter making
• Cheesemaking
• Jam making
• Tie and Dye
• Tailoring

 

 

OTHER ACTIVITIES INCLUDES

•  Adult education in reading and writing for illiterate women
•  Health-related programs
•  The women organize workshops on HIV/AIDS for caregivers and seminars in psycho-social counselling for community leaders
• They also organize the general public and any other business skills workshops.
• Training in home-based care, birth attendance and antenatal care
•  Organizing outreaches for Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT) in communities.
•  Adherence and monitoring Antiretroviral Therapy ART patients in communities
• Promotes child VCT
• Couple Counselling

 

HOW CAN YOU SUPPORT THE WOMEN?

 

• Find the market for their product they are producing
• Buy them materials for the product
• Buy them equipment’s for food process
• Train them in other community basic skills
• Supply of the equipment’s for small and medium entrepreneurship
• Support a woman in adult education 

 

BEADS AND RECYCLED POLYPHENE PLASTIC BAGS

 

 

Luyando Women have continued to make these hand bad made from the recycled plastic bag. The women do go around the community picking the used plastics from the grocery stores. They use these recycled plastics to make beautiful handbags has seen below. See the picture below.

BEADS

The Luyando Women have also continued to make beautiful and stunning Beads which expresses the unique sense of style. They make these Beads by buying raw materials from the local markets. The women are also training other women a step by step process on how to make these Beads. See the pictures below here are the Beads. 

 

BANGLES 

 

HIV FLAGS 

 

 

NECKLACES MADE FROM OLD NEWSPAPERS

 

Furthermore, Luyando Women have also continued to make Necklaces. The Necklaces are made from old Newspapers. The women also do go around the community and some offices to search for older Newspapers so that they can re-use them to make Necklaces. See the picture below here are the Necklaces made from old Newspapers.

 

DOOR TO DOOR VISITS

 

Since the registration of the Luyando Foundation in Zambia in 2014, the women have been conducting Door-To-Door home to visit HIV positive pregnant mothers who are not attending clinic appointments. Every week Luyando women do go around the houses within John Laing to counsel the HIV positive pregnant mothers about the importance of attending the clinical visits. This includes encouraging the HIV positive pregnant women to have their Husband involved in by attending together the clinic visit.

 

In most cases, women who undergo individual HIV testing in John Laing, they do not disclose their HIV test results to their husbands because they fear that their husband will call them prostitutes, fear of accusation of promiscuity, infidelity, violence, abandoned and loss of financial support from their husband. Luyando Woman does go round John Laing community sensitizing members of the community about the awareness of HIV and the importance of HIV testing. In Sub-Haran Africa, man has much influence in decision making in the house and in healthy reproduction. This includes the taking of HIV prevention of mother to child HIV transmission (National Institutes of Health, 2014).

 

PRENATAL CARE FOR HIV PREGNANT WOMEN

John Laing Community has no hospital nor clinic. HIV pregnant women have to walk from the community to another in order to receive prenatal care from the government clinic in another community called Kanyama. In Zambia, 16.4 per cent pregnant women are attending an antenatal clinic and are living with the HIV virus. It is estimated that with the prevention of Mother to Child Transmission interventions, 80,000 out 500,000 children born from HIV positive mother are exposed to HIV every year. In Zambia, more than 28,000 children are born with HIV and more 120,000 children under 15 years in Zambia are living with HIV. Zambia is part of the 25 countries recorded to have the highest estimated number of pregnant women living with HIV and they are need of antiretrovirals to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV. This includes the number of children who need ART (UNICEF, 2015).