VIGETSE COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTER

Vigetse community health center idea was mooted in 1963 by Vigetse Women Group that was a member of Kenya Voluntary Development Association. The Women who formed the group are now elderly and most of them have lived to witness the fruits of their labour. The formation was at a time when awareness levels were very low and women were largely marginalized in society with insignificant roles in decision making. The preponderance by the male gender due to cultural affinity consigned the women to the periphery and it was this trend that was vehemently opposed by the section of the womenfolk who teamed up to form the group with the aim of empowering the less fortunate in their midst to spur socio-economic development. The women begun small by engaging in horticultural activities where they mobilized savings for the purchase of the land. Despite the fact that they had the money to buy the land, it was culturally forbidden for women to oversee demarcation of land as this responsibility was the preserve of the men folk. The women had no choice but to solicit the services of a man who was incorporated into the group in order to pursue this agenda. They acquired the land in 1962 and construction begun at a slow pace in 1984 with the foundation raised by local and international volunteers from Kenya Voluntary Development Association. In 2004, through the efforts of Ms. Joyce Adisa Bunyoli, who served in KVDA in various capacities for many years, the community founded the Maragoli Community Development Foundation (MACODEF) with the aim of enhancing the volunteering resolve and tackling grave challenges afflicting the community courtesy of the higher poverty levels among the community folk. Vigetse Community Health Center has just been commissioned in 2013 after painstaking efforts by the women towards the construction of the facility, equipment and staffing. The health center thanks to these efforts currently has one qualified nurse who retired from Government service and another volunteer from the community who is a clinical officer and efforts are underway to engage more staff to cope with the increasing number of patients seeking treatment at the health center. Through the community support and well wishers, drugs have been purchased to start off the health center and there is need for more support to strategically align the health center with the ever changing medical challenges and the already expressed needs by the community members. Among the challenges posed is the insufficient staff, lack of adequate space for expansion for the laboratory and other critical amenities. The health center seriously requires injection of capital to reinforce the outlined shortfalls as well build its capacity to continue offering services to the larger community. The health center is among the key planks of MACODEF and it is situated in Lusiola sub-location south Maragoli location Vihiga County and its establishment was received with gratitude by the local community who have for many years been deprived and unable to access health care within the community