"JIFAHAMU" is a Swahili word meaning "know your status". The JIFAHAMU KENYA FOUNDATION (JKF) is a Kenyan registered not-for-profit, Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) whose mission is to address issues that affect the poorest of the poor, whose plight has been overlooked or carelessly handled by those who were expected to offer help and support. We also focus on health matters affecting people, the biggest one being HIV/AIDS. The Kenya government and other governments of the world, global peace and health organizations, Civil Society Organisations (CSO) and individuals filled with benevolence have sat and made strategies on how to reduce the spread of the HIV virus. But besides the enormous resources and campaigns, the virus is still spreading, accompanied with personal trauma, shame and stigma; shettering families and leaving behind orphans, mostly very young lives. Seemingly, the policies that have been made in beautiful air-conditioned offices behind computer screens have not been causing any meaningful change on the ground where the affected and the infected live.

It is aganist this backround that in 2006 four young people affected by the virus teamed up and started a group that eventually became the Jifahamu Kenya Foundation (JKF). Little did they know nor predict that they were starting a chain reaction that would reach deep into communities and create hope for thousands of others who were affected or infected with HIV. JKF has become a platform for airing their views against discrimination, stigmatisation and rejection by society. We must give credit to the founder of the predesessor CBO called the Emuhaya Rural Development programme (ERDP Kenya), Mr. Enos Opati Ongute, a computer engineer and a community worker who has committed personal resources to ensuring that the organisation runs. Mr. Ongute and friends of JKF have succeeded in passing a message to the Civil Society Organisations and to the government, that the approach has to be from the ground-up and not vice versa as the case is even now. Working closely with Mr. Jim Nduruchi (respected human rights advocate) and Mr. Henry Barasa (Community mobiliser), a lot is being done to mitigate the effects of HIV/AIDS in many areas across the country. We are working with the people in villages and slums and not in offices in cities and towns.

The following are the projects that JKF has undertaken within the communities: