Pipelines are our Lifelines

It was more than exciting when I recently read the amazing Parable of the Pipeline. This is a story of two friends, Pablo and Bruno who take different paths in the pursuit of financial freedom. They were both young and wanted better lives for themselves. One day an opportunity presented itself. The mayor of the village was seeking two people to carry water from a distant river to the village water point so that the villagers would find ease in water collection. Thankfully, the two friends won the job. They were paid on the basis of the amount of water they were able to collect in a day.

The bucket carrying opportunity meant that the bigger the bucket one carried, the more he would be paid. However, as time went by, Pablo felt dissatisfied with the wages they received from carrying large buckets of water and began to brain storm on better ways to make money. An idea got to him. He thought of building a pipeline from the river to the village water point. He shared his idea with Bruno who frantically refused to join in. Bruno was sure that with more buckets he would make more money.

Pablo was determined. He began to work eight hours a day and used the evenings and weekends to build his pipeline. This would take long. During this time, Bruno made more money of-course and got more time to spend at the bar and buy expensive items for himself. Hence, he seemed to have made it in life. Sadly, as time went by he began to look tired and his face was torn with exhaustion. His back ached and his fingers were blistered from the heavy weights.

The villagers on the other hand laughed at Pablo but he geared on and  finished building the pipeline in a year. Voilà! Now he was able to earn money as water flowed through the pipeline. He would make money while he rested, played or travelled .

This is a lifetime story. Most of us are settled on making more money by spending more time in their job. Any time above eight hours is over time. In case of age or illness the income is bound to cease as we live from one pay check to the next. Pablo understood that he only had to work hard at the beginning for an ongoing lifetime income. He struggled through in the first year of building a pipeline but water and money began to flow in the second year.The more pipelines we build the more financially free we become.

The Parable of the Pipeline

Meeting with Her Excellency

Her Excellency Graça Machel the patron of Campaign to End Pediatric HIV/AIDS (CEPA) with representatives of partner organizations

“To end the spread of HIV/AIDS is a continuous process, more or less like encouraging children in a village to go to school”. Her Excellency, Graça Machel.

Let’s curb rising cases of HIV spread from mother to child

It is now ten years after the Government initiated measures to curb the spread of HIV/Aids in children. Though significant inputs have been in place since then, the Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMCT) is still worrying.Available statistics paint a grim picture of mother to child transmission (MTCT), perhaps sending a message that it is time to review the strategies that have been put in place to deal with the situation.

During the past decade, the international community has continually committed to scale up access to health services and reduce the burden of HIV among women and children in line with the Millennium Development Goals, which include the targets to reduce the under-five mortality rate by two-thirds, reduce the maternal mortality ratio by three-quarters, achieve universal reproductive health and to halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/Aids by 2015.

The National Aids Control Council, in early 2010 launched the National Strategic Plan (Knasp III) and pledged commitment to combat the spread of HIV/Aids.These efforts are commendable and it is in the interest of the whole country that other players come in with new strategies. Adding to this call are other health programmes like the Campaign to End Paediatric HIV/Aids (CEPA) which is a three-year global advocacy campaign initiated by the Global Aids alliance, in key partnership with the Clinton Foundation HIV initiative and UNICEF. The campaign seeks to leverage policy reforms on health care and treatment access in

Kenya and at the global level, expand and activate in country advocacy networks and hold governments and decision makers accountable for tangible progress towards their policy commitments.It is such initiatives that are required to combat paediatric HIV/Aids infection by 2013. The Government should prioritise a review of its strategies to supplement CEPA and other organisations’ efforts.