The Ikambere association is committed to supporting women living with HIV, but not only. Its founder, Bernardette Rwegera, returned, for us, to her main missions.
In 1997, Bernardette Rewegera worked on her dissertation in anthropology at the École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. Doing research on immigrant women and children living in Île-de-France with HIV, she made a terrible observation. “I saw a lot of suffering and, above all, a lot of isolation. At the time, there weren’t many treatments, so the announcement of HIV status was equal to the announcement of death. There was a lot of pain associated with this feeling of imminent death.”she declares to aufeminin.
Acting to help these women in distress facing various forms of discrimination has thus become Bernadette Rwegera’s main mission, committed to this cause for 25 years now. “The goal was to break this isolation. It was a way to promote the living conditions of these women”, she explains. During all these years of mobilization, it was also necessary to develop the Ikambere association depending on the evolution of HIV. “Gradually, AIDS became a chronic disease. It was therefore necessary to imagine living with HIV, to imagine life projects and to ensure that these women did not stay there, waiting for the death that did not come. They had to learn to live like everyone else and also consider the future”confides the founder of Ikambere.
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Breaking the isolation of women living with HIV
Bernardette Rewegera wants to adapt to the needs of each woman. “We work with a lot of benevolence because we welcome women who are heckled by life, who are not well and, above all, in precariousness. Our work is therefore centered on the person”she tells us. “Support is both individual and collective. Individual, why? Because every woman is different from the other. Each woman arrives with her possibilities, her means and the means are different, the possibilities too. Some people, for example, are educated. Others are less so. Some come from wealthy backgrounds, some don’t.
If it is necessary to adapt to the needs of each one, it is also necessary to fight against the isolation of these women victims of discrimination because of the disease. Fortunately, collective support is also at the heart of Ikambere’s missions. “They can participate in many activities such as sport, nutrition, aesthetic care available to them. All this allows them to be together”according to the founder of the association.
Ikambere, an association that is growing
In 2019, a study revealed the benefits of the association’s missions. “These results have helped to further develop Ikambere”noted Bernadette Rwegera. “We realized that this methodology can be used for other pathologies. So we decided to also deal with other chronic diseases like diabetes, obesity and high blood pressure.” In 2021, a house was therefore opened in Ivry-sur-Seine to accommodate people suffering from these chronic diseases.
If Bernadette Rwegera developed the association in a remarkable way, she had to face the health crisis and the urgency of the situation. Home deliveries were set up during confinement and a listening number was available 24 hours a day to keep in touch. But not only ! “We have also decided to open a holiday home in Val-d’Oise in 2021. We send women to this house for a week. They leave on Tuesday and return on Saturday. They don’t do any household chores. (…) They have the opportunity to do sports, nutrition activities, meetings, walking, therapeutic education in the great outdoors“, she explained to us. A way of free these women from mental burden and to refocus on herself, despite the illness.
Still, it is sometimes difficult for some women to take the plunge and ask for help. So, in the face of discrimination and fear of judgement, what to do? Bernadette Rwegera wants to reassure those who dare not knock on the door of the association. “They need to know that the people they are going to meet will be women like them. They will support each other within Ikambere. Then, they will meet professionals. We are in confidentiality and in benevolence. There is no judgment. The goal is for them to get away with it.”
How to support the Ikambere association?
- You can support Ikambere by doing a donation on the association’s website.
- You can become a volunteer by contacting +33 – (0)1 48 20 82 60 or [email protected]
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