PLTJ Director Khadija Omar
From the age of 24 Khadija Omar Rama led an immediate and very personal response to caring for people living with HIV/AIDS who had been abandoned by their families and ostracized by the community. Khadija’s goal was to offer support to people with AIDS during the final stages of their illness so they could die with peace and dignity. It focused on the nutritional, medicinal and psychosocial needs of these people, especially women.
Since 1994, the PLTJ operation has been greatly expanded to address the many social and economic problems arising from the HIV/AIDS pandemic. It is still focused on people abandoned as a result of their HIV status particularly women with AIDS and their orphaned children some of whom may be HIV positive and it remains an entirely community driven initiative under the leadership of Khadija.
PEPO LA TUMAINI JANGWANI is the most successful and enduring HIV AIDS initiative in the Isiolo area serving over 7,000 families. In 2005 Khadija was nominated by the UN for Woman of the Year for her work and in 2011 was nominated as one of six women in Kenya for the Humanitarian Award marking her long standing efforts in fighting against the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Isiolo.
" I see the SBK Collaborative initiative as a pioneering global arts platform that will give unique opportunities to artists from all over the world to come together and make new discoveries of the art that is alive in our people. It is not an easy task to restore dignity to minority communities and enable them to feel empowered. Art can be a major tool to use, but first must come our humanism. I am looking forward to see how we all meet the challenge."
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