Congratulations to Violet Shivutse of GROOTS Kenya and the Kenya Home-Based Care Alliance for her nomination by the Global Coalition on Women and AIDS (GCWA) to represent the Huairou Commission on GCWA’s Steering Committee!  The Global Coalition on Women and AIDS is a worldwide alliance of civil society groups, networks of women living with HIV, women’s organizations, AIDS service organizations, and the United Nations system committed to strengthening AIDS programming for women and girls.

The nomination of Violet, the first and only grassroots home based caregiver to sit on the GCWA Steering Committee, is a significant accomplishment. It also marks a great opportunity for grassroots women to directly influence the women’s movement and increases access to global policy spaces. We congratulate GCWA for taking this important step in recognizing the importance of grassroots caregivers in the global AIDS response.

Violet’s aim on the GCWA Steering Committee is to ensure the voices and priorities of grassroots women responding to HIV in poor urban and rural communities across Africa are represented on the Steering Committee. She will also be able to influence the agenda, priorities and programs of the GCWA to reflect grassroots women’s realities. Through her, the voices of many grassroots women, providing home-based care to people living with HIV/AIDS will directly reach the global level.

Violet is a global leader whose leadership is deeply rooted in her own community. She is the founder and director of Shibuye Community Health Workers and a focal point leader in GROOTS Kenya. She is also a founder and leader in the Kenya Home-Based Care Alliance and one of the innovators of the Watch Dog Group, a partnership and accountability tool which is stopping and redressing land grabbing from widows and orphans across Kenya. In the Huairou Commission, she skillfully bridges her grassroots experience to global level policies and processes throughout many activities and events. We are excited for the opportunity she has been given to provide her expertise to the GCWA!