Bringing Hope, Healing To A Village

LWALA, Kenya- Saving lives, that's what doctors do.

But save a village? That's more difficult unless you are Milton Ochieng, a medical student at Vanderbilt University.

The village he's trying to save is his own.

After losing both parents to AIDS, Ochieng recently returned home to fulfill his father's dream of opening a community health clinic.

Lwala, Kenya, is a different village than the one Milton Ochieng left seven years ago.

His parents are no longer here to welcome him home.

And with each visit, there are fewer and fewer left to greet him.

While he's been away studying medicine at Vanderbilt, village life has been overshadowed by death.

"The woman passed away some 45 minutes ago," said Omondi Ochieng as a woman nearby wailed. "That's the cry you hear."

That's why Ochieng came back.

After his father died, Ochieng promised to finish the clinic his dad started. Two years later, with help from Vanderbilt and hundreds of supporters in Nashville, the clinic was finally opening.

It was barely opened this spring and with a limited staff, and an even more limited pharmacy, Ochieng found himself on his own.

"There are so many people outside," Ochieng said, standing inside the clinic. "We could use some more drugs. It's just very scary. We'll see what we can do for people."

These are the same people who helped pay his way to the U.S. so he could become a doctor. Building this clinic was payback.

It was also a tribute to his parents who could not be here.

During the dedication ceremony, Ochieng acknowledged his parents whose deaths he said he believed were for a reason.

Every fourth person here has HIV, the same disease that took Ochieng's parents. Now, there is somewhere for the sick to go and someone to give them hope. That's why Ochieng returned home.

Ochieng is already out fundraising again so he can get the clinic an ambulance and drugs to treat people with HIV.