Mary Nyajwaya Reaches Out to Heifer to Fight AIDS
 Mary's situation was bleak. Her husband had died of AIDS, she had now way to support her young children and she had lost a sense of hope — until Heifer International stepped in.
After the husband of Mary Nyajwaya, a poor farmer in rural Kenya, died of AIDS, she infuriated her in-laws by refusing to follow the traditional practice of being "inherited" by another man in the community. Health workers who told her that she was HIV positive advised her for her own health against having more children.
Traditional practice would have dictated that she be adopted by another man and bear children who then would have been considered to be sons or daughters of her late husband and thus grandchildren of her in-laws. Because her husband had kept his illness secret, the in-laws did not believe her when she told them that his death was due to AIDS. So they denied Mary the use of the land that had supported her household that had increased to eight after she took in a sister-in-law and two AIDS orphans. With such a large family and no land, Mary had little hope for a future.
Traditionally, men plow and till while women plant and harvest. Without permission to plow, Mary was effectively cut off from her principal source of income. Reduced to gathering food, she was in danger of weakening and dying.
Mary appealed for help to a Heifer partner, the Oyugis Integrated Project (OIP), which provides health counseling and social services to the poor. OIP referred her to Heifer, and Heifer gave Mary a cow. She rented land far from the family plot and got Heifer partners to break the ground and till the soil. Then she planted beans and corn for food and as cash crops. The cow, Deburra (Brownie), she fed from napier grass that grew without need of cultivation on her family's land. The in-laws not only tolerated this, they helped care for the cow and then began to appreciate her hard work as they shared in the milk from the cow.
Meanwhile, Mary "passed on" two of Deburra's offspring-yearling heifers-to others, fulfilling Heifer's requirement to share offspring of her animals with others through its signature practice of "Passing on the Gift." Through milk sales she realizes about $24 per month-enough to pay for her children's school tuition and supplies. She hopes to live long enough to see her children established on a piece of land that they can call their own. "If the children succeed, I will be okay," she declares.
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Heifer's work is bringing new hope to AIDS victims and their families. Hear their stories
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HIV/AIDS
By The Numbers
15 million children have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS. That's more than the combined total of all the children under the age of five in 48 of the 50 states in the U.S.
96 percent of all HIV cases are in the developing world.
25 million in Sub-Saharan Africa are HIV positive.
Every 60 seconds a child dies of HIV/AIDS related diseases.
14,000 people contract HIV worldwide every day.
75 percent of all the young people infected are women and girls.
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