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WiRED International Applauds Steve Wonder Okello
BY ALLISON KOZICHAROW; EDITED BY BERNICE BORN
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Steve Wonder Okello
here is something wonderful about Steve Wonder Okello.
Steve said, “I was born in Obunga, one of the biggest slums in Kisumu, Kenya, where opportunity does not come to you, but you must go after it.” For the past five years Steve has been a client support staffer at the WiRED International Center in Obunga.
Obunga street
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Steve was born in 1987 and attended high school in Kisumu. In 2005 he began volunteering for a nongovernmental organization (NGO) in Kisumu’s East District, where he guided, mobilized and educated at-risk populations including lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, those living with HIV and AIDS, commercial sex workers and drug and substance users.
In 2010 Steve answered an advertisement for the position of a community health educator with the WiRED Community Health Education Center in Obunga.
Steve said, “I was very happy to be a member of the client support staff especially in Obunga since Obunga has many health-related problems ranging from sanitation and hygiene, HIV and AIDS, malnutrition, diarrheal diseases, alcoholism, and drug and substance abuse — the list is endless. I realized that the WIRED Community Health Information Center can help address some of the problems that the Obunga community has. I went through an interview, and I was lucky to get the job.”
Pathway in Obunga
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Steve and his coworkers on the Obunga WiRED staff welcome visitors to the Center, find out their health concerns and help them access appropriate modules from the computer-based library. The support staff, which is familiar with the list of health topics and with the contents of the modules, provides any help visitors need as they go through the interactive training material.
WiRED’s education modules and the Certificate Program (see earlier story)
draw Steve’s unqualified praise for helping vulnerable people in his community get up-to-date medical and health information. He said, “These modules have changed the lives of many in the grass roots audience, including school children and teachers whom we reach. … The Certificate Program has increased the number of people able to access health information.” Steve, too, has studied the modules, passed the exams and now holds a Bronze Certificate.
Family in Obunga
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Steve said that the annual visits of WiRED’s Director Gary Selnow, Ph.D., and his team energize him and the other staff members. “The yearly visit is very encouraging and has helped us work as a team and work harder. … All the trainings, meetings and new modules mean new and exciting challenges for me, and therefore I do my best to meet the expectations of the community. Most clients whom we have served have appreciated our good work and have come back for more services. We have welcomed people who come to do research and others who study different modules including Ebola, malaria, HIV and AIDS, polio, measles, alcohol abuse, teenage pregnancy, cervical cancer, stroke, water quality and many others.”
Steve sums up his achievement: “I was born in a place where people were associated only with crime, alcohol abuse and dropping out of school. It was not easy growing up in this area, but since a person can succeed anywhere, I did it!”
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