Life for Shirin Allah Jonathan a 10-year-old primary school girl had been one filled with sickness, weakness, and misery due to her recurrent illness which led to her occasional absence at school.

Shirin Allah lives with her mother and sister in a rural village known as Mazarang, Bitako Ward, Zing LGA of Taraba State, Nigeria. This village lacks basic amenities like drinking water, electricity, and standard health facility. As a result of the absence of standard health facilities in the village, the villagers’ resort to traditional methods of treatment when faced with health complications.

So was the case for Shirin Allah, her family was left with no choice but to use traditional methods to treat Shirin Allah until the Lafiyan Yara Project Outreach team visited the community.

In 2020, The Lafiyan Yara Project conducted an outreach activity in the eight (8) project implementation Local Government Areas (LGAs) of the state. This was to ensure that HIV Testing Services (HTS) was provided to the people living in the remote areas of the LGAs. The project outreach team visited Shirin Allah’s school last year and luckily, she was in school at that time, and was among the students that were tested. After testing, Shirin Allah and some of her classmates tested positive for HIV and the team referred them to the General Hospital Zing for further consultation and enrolment (they also supported them with transport stipend to the hospital).

Incidentally, the team was also conducting COVID – 19 palliative distributions at the time and luckily Shirin Allah and her family were one of the few families that benefited from the palliative distribution.

Seven months after, the Lafiyan Yara Project team visited Shirin Allah in her village to check up on her recovery process and they were amazed at her fast recovery and lively spirit.

The Jonathan’s’ are indeed grateful for the care and support the Lafiyan Yara project gave to them by restoring their little Shirin Allah’s “hope”!.

Shirin Allah confirmed to the team that she rarely falls sick, and she attends school regularly.

Shirin Allah and her family are among the many beneficiaries from the Lafiyan Yara Project who have gained a positive behavioral change in their way of life. This in turn has also has provided some community members with a better understanding of the importance of HTS, ANC and demystifying their former misinformed health beliefs.