Key Description:

Mama Maria Kenya Clinic (MMK) provides healthcare to underserved communities in Kenya through an essential package of health services offering basic ambulatory and short-term inpatient care, prenatal and maternal care, immunizations, pediatric care, and emergency transport. Working beyond clan and common tribal trappings, Mama Maria is dedicated to providing opportunities to all who stand in need. Medical professionals are encouraged to volunteer their services in the clinic. MMK also offers volunteers the opportunity to work with children, assist in the local schools, and promote public health awareness and education.


Mama Maria Kenya provides healthcare to underserved communities in Kenya through an essential package of health services offering basic ambulatory and short-term inpatient care, prenatal and maternal care, immunizations, pediatric care, and emergency transport.. Volunteers have many opportunities to work in the clinic, hospital, local school, and in the community.

PROGRAM OVERVIEW

Mama Maria is an indigenous, community-centric organization that provides low-cost healthcare services to aid the disadvantaged people of rural Kenya with accessible and sustainable healthcare. Mama Maria offers volunteers the opportunity to work in the flagship clinic in Muhuru Bay

Mama Maria focuses on providing primary preventive measures through routine health maintenance, in tandem with cure and/or management of disease and illness.

Mama Maria clinics are run by locally trained professionals with a keen understanding of the healthcare challenges and needs each community faces. Widows and others in need, with little or no opportunity for income, are also trained in the daily operation and management of the clinic.

Watch The Story of Mama Maria video.

MAMA MARIA GOALS

  • To continue to offer and expand:
  • Basic ambulatory and short-term inpatient care
  • Maternal /Perinatal services
  • HIV/AIDS testing, care and treatment
  • Pediatric care and childhood immunizations
  • Emergency transport for urgent/critical cases
  • To further develop sustainable healthcare services for people in need, including curative and preventive health services that are typically not provided by hospitals (e.g. surgeries or specialized care).
  • To service all people, regardless of tribe, station, clan, religion, gender or health status. This includes a fundamental philosophy dedicated to building a diverse workforce in all the communities we serve.
  • To provide patients with fair, affordable, and quality healthcare, using systems built on operational excellence.

VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES AT MAMA MARIA

Medicine:

  • Work in community heath clinic
  • Provide pediatric care and childhood immunizations
  • Conduct HIV/AIDS testing, treatment and care

Public Health Education:

  • Public health awareness, including HIV/AIDS, nutrition, malaria, etc.
  • Participate in community outreach programs

Capacity Building:

  • Training and workshops in healthcare management, nutrition and maternal care
  • Leadership and entrepreneurial training

Education:

  • Preschool to 5th grade teaching English, basic use of computers, writing, health education and physical education.

ACCOMMODATIONS AT MAMA MARIA

The volunteer compound is a short distance from the hospital compound, a 3.5 acre complex with a school, a hospital, and where all the activities take place.

Housing

Volunteers are housed in one of 3 double-occupancy volunteer huts.  Linens and mosquito nets are provided for each bed.

Meals

Meals (except dinner) will be provided on site at the hospital compound. Dinner will be taken at the volunteer compound.

Drinking Water

Volunteers are provided with boiled and filtered water.

Electricity

There is electricity at the hospital, but not at the volunteer compound.

Internet Access

Volunteers can access the internet via the MMK modem

Laundry

The hospitality staff will do your laundry unless a volunteer wants to do his/hers in that case the hospitality staff will avails laundry water etc. But the staff loves to help. We ask that everyone wash their own undergarments.

ABOUT PROGRAM DIRECTOR MAMA MARIA KENYA:
PETER KITHENE 

 Childhood and Family

I was born in a loving family in rural Kenya. As a child, I witnessed a lot of suffering resulting from lack of healthcare.  I lost six of my siblings from diseases that I believe were preventable and treatable if there was a reliable health clinic. I lost my parents at age 12, again from preventable causes. I vowed to pursue education and in turn to create a reliable healthcare solution for rural communities.

Challenges to getting an education

I loved being in grade school but I was discouraged by the fact that I didn’t know how I could pursue secondary education because of the financial burden. At that time secondary education in Kenya was extremely expensive, and more so to an orphaned child like me. However, I never gave up worked hard and earned a scholarship to Kenya’s  premier high school, Starehe Boys Center in Nairobi, and later to the University of Washington, Seattle.

Hopes for Mama Maria Kenya

My goal is for Mama Maria to become a scalable and sustainable health care model across rural and low-income African communities

Our Partnership with Village Volunteers

Village Volunteers helps us with fundraising, project support and  sending volunteers who donate their time and resource to advance our cause. Also, Village Volunteers helped with partnership opportunities. We thank them for that!

The ability for a closed and remote community like mine and many others to come into contact with people from other cultures, other regions, and other backgrounds is a great eye opening and educational for the community.

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