Voices of Hope for Action The project #Voices of Hope for Action# contributes to advancing the (self)empowerment of obstetric fistula survivors in Kenya to advocate for their own sexual reproductive health rights (SRHR) and the socio economic well-being of all women. The initiative seeks to train survivors to become advocates and provide spaces for them to raise their voices to demand the social services that they need.

WADADIA collaborates with healthcare service providers, such as the Fistula Foundation, to identify fistula survivors already treated and waiting for the reintegration services to be part of this project. Through the project then these women are being encouraged to enrol into WADADIA reintegration centre where they will be able to access holistic services they need in a stigma-free, safe, and inclusive environment. Fistula Foundation will pay for their treatment while WADADIA will take care of the vocational training whereas the Voices of Hope funds will support with life skills training as well as start-up kits once they complete their training.  After the training the survivors are supported to start-up with a relevant business plan to promote their financial independence.

WADADIA is cognizant of the fact that though fistula is a physical condition, its psychological, and socio economic effects significantly affects the recovery process of those women and the of recurrence. WADADIA believes that empowering the survivors, and supporting them to access, socio economic services will enable them to implement informed choices around improving their livelihoods, prevent recurrence of obstetric fistula, as well as get their support in prevention of obstetric fistula.

Reintegration is an important component of treatment and care of fistula patients. After treatment, fistula survivors are discharged on instructions, such as: abstaining from sex for at-least 6 months and refraining from heavy duties. Adherence to these instructions aids the healing process. However, keeping in mind that some women get fistula from sexual assault by persons known to them, this makes their home environment hostile for their holistic recovery even after the fistula surgery. There is need to have safe homes where they can be hosted for theperiod of recovery.  That is why WADADIA#s works with families willing to host fistula survivors that can provide a conducive healing environment for them during their recovery time. The host families stay with the treated fistula survivors for a period of 3-6 months, giving them a sense of love acceptance and belonging. This helps preventing the recurrence of fistula, as well as giving them emotional and psychological resilience.

However, some of this host family are far from our empowerment and rehabilitation centres.The women in some of these host families have to walk for long distances or need transport to reach our centre for skills training,and other services. This why WADADIA aims to build an accommodation block that will host fistula survivors both after treatment andduring the skills training. Fistula survivors are stigmatised and marginalised which makes them have a very low self-esteem. Training them on advocacy skills raises their self-esteem and empower them to become ambassadors of change.