Silper Agandi - Kenya

When Silper Agandi, a cleaner at the Tupange-supported Migosi Health Center in Kisumu, Kenya, was invited to a training on family planning, she was sure there had been some mistake. "Those things are always for the nurses and doctors only--why would they ever want a sweeper to go to that class?" she asked herself. But the 32-year-old mother of seven is exactly the kind of woman the program hopes to reach. "We learned so much about family planning in those classes," Silper says of the Jhpiego-led urban reproductive health initiative, supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. "Everybody had questions--even the nurses! I asked so many. With seven children, I knew I just couldn't manage anymore. I was so tired. But I was fearing that it was going to hurt my body." After attending just two of the series of classes, Silper started using Depo Provera, hormonal injections. “Family planning is good. Tupange made me feel like I belong to myself again,’’ she says. “Now that I have taken those classes I tell everybody about family planning. I encourage them to come and talk to our nurses and to choose a method. I show them how well I am, and I tell them that I am not having any problems. Because they can see me with their eyes, they believe me.”