Samburu Positive Living Network is a community-led organisation, built by and for people living with HIV in Samburu County, Kenya. Here's our story, how we work, and what we stand for.
Samburu Positive Living Network began in 2010, not as an institution but as a handful of neighbours in Samburu County who shared one thing in common: an HIV diagnosis, and nowhere to talk about it openly. In a region where stigma often travelled faster than treatment, a small group led by founder Ekadeli Echoto decided that no one else should have to sit with that news alone.
What started as informal conversations grew into a routine — home visits, shared knowledge about treatment and care, and a quiet but firm commitment to show up for one another. That commitment became the foundation everything else was built on.
Turning a support circle into a county-wide organisation took years of deliberate work: recruiting and training community health volunteers, building relationships with the Samburu County Health Department, and learning — often the hard way — how to keep a volunteer-powered network running through funding gaps and difficult seasons.
Today that network includes more than 200 trained community health volunteers and peer counsellors, reaching families across 18 villages that a clinic-based system alone could never cover on its own.
SPLN now runs four connected programme areas — peer support and counselling, home-based care, livelihoods and cooperatives, and community health training — all delivered by people who live in the communities they serve. We're not a distant service; we're usually someone from the same village.
Two decades on, the model hasn't changed much: show up, listen first, and build whatever support a family actually needs — whether that's counselling, a referral, or help getting a herd of goats back on its feet.
Four principles shape every programme we run, from a first home visit to a county-wide training cohort.
Four commitments shape every home visit, every clinic referral and every group meeting we hold.
We meet every member with warmth first, treatment plans second — dignity is never conditional.
Status stays private. Trust is the foundation every counselling session and home visit is built on.
Peer-led groups mean support comes from people who understand the journey firsthand.
Every donation and every outcome is tracked and reported back to the members we serve.
We do this by training community volunteers, linking members to care, and building small enterprises that let families provide for themselves.
MWe envision fully integrated, community-owned health support reaching every manyatta across the county.
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