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A happy Vickie Winkler embracing one of her students

Vickie Winkler: Profile of a Modern-Day Heroine

by Stephanie Kirincic

After more than 20 years at the helm of Health Education Resource Team (HEART), Vickie Winkler is stepping down this March. However, the venerable founder and president of the Christian nonprofit dedicated to helping Africans impacted by HIV/AIDS, will still still be involved with fundraising and partner relationships.

The first time the California native stepped onto Kenyan soil was in 1979 when her late husband, Kenn, accepted a teaching position at Bible College in Nairobi. While her husband taught theology, Vickie, an RN, instructed wives of local pastors about health.

The young couple made a commitment to stay four years, and when they had fulfilled their promise, returned to the United States. But by then they had caught the African ‘bug’ and continued to travel back and forth to Kenya to teach when they had the opportunity. These periodic visits changed to something much more extensive in 1999 when the HIV/AIDS pandemic was declared a national disaster in Kenya. About a week after that declaration, Vickie was invited to teach an HIV/AIDS course at Bible College, and not just to the students, but also to local pastors and churches.

In typical Vickie style, she immediately stepped up to the challenge. Not only did she instruct her students about HIV/AIDS, but she taught them about other issues related to health in family life, including practices that were considered non-traditional (thus frowned upon by some) health methods in Kenya by many at the time, such as birth control.

Her progressive approach extended to the church, where she openly asked the question ‘how can we get the church to be a part of the solution instead of part of the problem?’ She considered the church to be a part of the problem because there were some members in it who perpetuated the idea that if a person had HIV/AIDS, which was primarily transmitted sexually, then that person was a “sinner.” Vickie tried to explain that this stigma was unhelpful and untrue.

Her lectures were meant to last an hour but would often run up to three hours because of the question-answer period she afforded the audience. Eventually, her experience educating people about HIV/AIDS evolved into HEART in 2000. By then, she was not just lecturing at the college, but she and her team were also traveling from village to village, teaching extensively about HIV/AIDS, health, and more to different age groups and life situations. This included children who were orphaned because of the pandemic, teenagers who were just beginning to experiment with sex and needed to learn precautions, and adults who were already infected and desperate for information on how to manage the disease.

In short, she and her team focused on helping people who wanted to help themselves and their communities. Vickie's motto was “I believe in you doing something in your village, and I’ll help you do it.” This approach became known as community driven development.

Vickie and her team focused on mothers, particularly HIV positive mothers, and helped them improve their health. They also taught the mothers a trade so the women could earn money and have the means to take care of their children, which was particularly important when the father was out of the picture. “When you empower women, they run with it,” says Vickie.

To learn how you can support HEART as a volunteer or through a donation, please visit www.africaheart.com – and let them know SistersGeographic sent you!