It's World AIDS Day and the World Council of Credit Unions has observed the day by shining a spotlight on the efforts of Kenya's savings and credit cooperatives.

The Busia Compassionate Centre in Busia, Kenya, with funding from WOCCU has been helping combat the global HIV/AIDS epidemic by supporting orphans who have lost their parents to the disease or who are infected themselves.

For some four years credit unions in Kenya played active roles in providing HIV/AIDS prevention education to members and providing food produced by farmers, who received credit union loans, to orphanages that help AIDS-affected children. In addition, staffers taught volunteers to plant food crops on the orphanage grounds, introduced irrigation, made renovations and worked with program credit unions to finance additional food and scholarships for older orphans to attend secondary school.