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Health
and Human Services
A Caring
Place for
Africans and their Families
 Active participation in American society requires optimal health, as
well as the means to maintain one’s health. As with many individuals
and families living within central Indiana, healthcare is a major
concern for Africans and their families, too. When Africans settle
in the metropolitan area, they are confronted with many barriers and
challenges to acquiring basic healthcare and maintaining their
health; barriers and challenges which can be exacerbated by their
unfamiliarity with the American healthcare system, linguistic
barriers, different cultural conceptions of health and wellness, and
medical histories that are linked to tropical health problems that
may be unfamiliar to or misunderstood by non-African medical
professionals.
 Imagine a middle-aged former primary school teacher visiting a
medical doctor for the first time in her life only to discover
that she is unable to receive accurate treatment for her symptoms.
Despite her fluency in English, her description is unable to be
understood “culturally” by the doctor. Imagine an auto-mechanic
going from a basic diet of beans, rice, seasonal fruit, and meat
products to a completely new diet. After continued consumption, he
develops cardiovascular disease as a result of that. Imagine a son
without insurance that takes his elderly mother to the hospital to
treat recurring health symptoms only to receive a month later an
outrageous health bill for procedures that were expected to be
relatively inexpensive. As the son defaults on payments, his
credit rating is ruined.
The African Health Initiative (AHI), which includes a health
clinic and health-focused programs, and our
confidential HIV Testing and Counseling services directly
confront these barriers by providing sustainable solutions to the
healthcare challenges that are faced by Africans and their
families.
The African Health Initiative offers both medical and
non-medical.
Medical
The medical clinic has been proactive in two areas:
Establishing medical baseline by providing complete health
assessment for consumers who
have never had their health
checked or consumers who do not have access to screen for
their health status in a long time;
Providing holistic immediate care, referrals and aftercare
monitoring to consumers who are uninsured and cannot afford
coverage.
Non-medical
The non-medical services include:
Sourcing health and related services and coordinating the
matching of clients to these services, including all referral
procedures and access to benefit and entitlement programs;
Offering community and family based activities that promote
healthy lifestyles such as soccer and dance;
Offering translation/interpretation services to bridge
language and cultural barriers in health services
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