TABITHA CLINIC HISTORY

Residents of Kibera perform basic market analyses of their environment every day.  It is the only way in which they can survive on less than a dollar a day.  Consider, for example, the late Tabitha Atieno Festo, a registered nurse living in Kibera.  In 2000, Festo approached Barcott with a small business plan for which she needed financing.  Festo had done some research and discovered that if she bought vegetables in Kibera and sold them in a wealthier Nairobi neighborhood, she could undercut her competition’s prices and still make a profit.  Barcott gave her US $26.  When Barcott returned to Kibera a year later in 2001 to establish the youth sports league, Festo had turned a profit on the gift and opened the small medical clinic in her home where she had begun treating patients.  She named the operation Rye Clinic after the CFK founder.  Tabitha died in Nairobi in 2004, at which time the clinic’s name was changed to Tabitha Medical Clinic in her memory.

In 2007, CFK formalized its partnership with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) International Emerging Infections Program. As part of the CDC’s efforts to track and target specific causes of morbidity in Kibera through an ongoing household surveillance program, CFK’s Tabitha Clinic has become the community referral clinic for over 20,000 residents to receive free healthcare.