Organic Health Response

The Organic Health Response seeks to activate the communities of Mfangano Island, in Kenya's Lake Victoria to strengthen health, resilience, and local voices and support open community spaces to advance critical conversations and local solutions. Our team uses research to understand the needs of our population and impact of our actions. We envision an inspired Mfangano Island community cultivating resilience and wellbeing through the lake region. Founded in 2008, OHR is registered in the USA as a 501(c)3 nonprofit and partners in Kenya with the Ekialo Kiona Center, a Community Based Organization (CBO) on Mfangano Island. Together we equip our rural villages with resources, training, and connections to respond “organically”—as unified communities— to the overwhelming socio-economic, epidemiological, and ecological challenges we face. Our team also uses research to understand the needs of our population and impact of our actions. Mfangano Island, in the heart of Lake Victoria, is home to approximately 19,000 people of Suba and Luo descent. The small beach villages that line the shores of this island are accessible from the mainland only by a 2-hr ride on wooden outboard canoes. Fishing and subsistence farming are primary occupations for the majority of residents. People here speak English, Swahili, Luo, and Suba—a language spoken nowhere in the world other than the shores of Lake Victoria. The warm communities of Mfangano face many serious & immediate health challenges. With local HIV prevalence estimated at over 30%, Mfangano is struggling to address the impact of one of the most critical concentrations of HIV/AIDS anywhere in the world.