2024 Mid-Year Report
General Ministry Update
2024 has already proven to be a landmark year for Untold. We have officially broken ground on the land that will serve as our Nairobi campus. We are also actively expanding to South Africa and have hired our first six South African team members. In Q3, we crossed the significant milestone of graduating our 45,000th client.
As we cross the midway point of our 17th year of ministry, we are more excited than ever to live out our mission to embrace and equip people to live a life beyond AIDS. The Untold model of ministry is unique. We search for our clients and find them in their greatest time of need. Once enrolled in the program, clients are offered integrated care that addresses their physical, emotional, spiritual, and economic health.
TEAM UPDATES
Foundational Helping Skills
At Untold, it is important to us that we consistently equip our staff with information and training around best practices and the highest quality interventions in their field. As part of our desire to ensure our staff feels equipped and confident in their ability to navigate any and all client situations, we have committed to introducing a series of internally-curated trainings designed to speak directly to situations, concerns, and challenges in the center counselor’s role. Foundational Helping Skills (FHS) is a competency-based training that centers on 13 core counseling skills. The training was created by a Ugandan Clinical Psychologist, so it is highly contextualized to the scenarios our team encounters in the field. In June and July, we hosted our annual regional learning summits in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, and we successfully trained our entire team of 302 full-time team staff in the FHS content. We are excited to see how these skills will enhance our team’s work in the coming months.
Kijabe Training Partnership
In addition to helping our African team feel equipped with mental health care skills, we are committed to expanding the clinical training available to our team. To that end, we are currently finalizing a partnership with Kijabe Hospital. Kijabe is a world-class mission hospital on the outskirts of Nairobi that provides compassionate healthcare and top-tier medical training. We have recently connected with the clinical team that runs their HIV program, and they are in the process of conducting a needs assessment with the Untold field staff in Nairobi. We are moving toward a partnership agreement that would make their clinicians available as mentors to small groups of Untold field staff. They will also conduct an annual sensitization training with our field teams to ensure we have access to the latest best practices and resources for serving key populations.
New Team Members
In the past three months, we’ve added three new team members to our U.S. staff. We’ve already begun to experience the impact of this additional capacity and their contribution to our culture. Additionally, our full-time staff in Africa have seen growth in numbers, including a new Project Officer for Communications in Uganda.
“What drew me to Untold was the integrated approach to care; viewing and treating people in their humanness and not a list of symptoms. I’m excited to help other people connect to a story that is bigger than themselves, whether that is prayerfully, financially, relationally, or all of the above.”
“Having had exposure to a lot of different and incredible non-profits in my previous job, Untold was always the gold standard for excellence and effectiveness. I love getting to connect more people and churches into the work of pursuing a world where no story is cut short or silenced by AIDS.”
“I was drawn to Untold because of the organization’s cultural commitments to curiosity, flourishing, abundance, and belonging, while humbly walking with Jesus. I enjoy making things run smoothly and efficiently, so I’m excited at the idea of encouraging Untold’s staff to flourish in their roles by supporting and enhancing Untold’s internal systems.”
“The stories of the clients truly inspire me, each one a testament to resilience and strength. However, what captivates me the most are the stories of my fellow colleagues, especially the center staff. Listening to their experiences and witnessing how their lives have been transformed through their work with clients is a profound blessing. It fills me with hope and motivates me to work harder.
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PROGRAM UPDATES
South Africa
We have officially launched two Untold centers in Johannesburg, South Africa - one in an informal settlement called Zandspruit and one in a township called Westbury. We selected the communities where our first two centers are with the counsel and expertise of our two South African leaders, Miemie Retsuri and Claude Johnson.
Intern Program
We are excited to announce our partnership with the dietetics department at Georgia State University. We have taken on an intern in the nutrition master program and will work with her for the 2024-2025 school year. This intern will work with our African health department to help us think innovatively about the nutrition component of our program.
Curriculum Feedback
In 2022, we began the launch of our new and improved program curriculum across all of our centers. Since then, we have completed the rollout along with an initial curriculum assessment. The assessment featured two levels, one focused on the counselor's experience during implementation, and the other focused on the client's experience throughout their nine months. We’re excited to present these findings and hope you’ll celebrate the continued work that is being done across East Africa through Untold.
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93% of Untold center counselors surveyed attribute significant behavior change in clients’ emotional wellbeing, behavior and mindset changes, and spiritual and physical health to the guidance provided by the new curriculum.
The new curriculum impacted center counselors approach most significantly to the following topics: ARV adherence and HIV status disclosure, substance use, preparing clients for independence, and equipping clients to cope with trauma and conflict.
95% of Untold center counselors surveyed reported a noticeable and positive change in the consistency of routines and approach in client sessions after the rollout of the new curriculum.
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100% of clients surveyed reported a positive change in their overall mood after individual and group counseling sessions.
Clients surveyed particularly felt improvement in the following areas: Positive outlook and hopefulness, emotional stability and stress management, social support and sense of belonging.
97% of clients surveyed reported feeling engaged and comfortable exploring session topics like trauma, conflict, and sensitive physical health discussions with their center counselors.
99% of clients surveyed noted a positive change in their view of themselves, attributing that to the program’s counseling and group sessions.
99% of clients surveyed noted that their view of the world has positively changed as a result of the Untold program.
STRATEGIC PLANNING
In January 2024, we launched the most participatory strategic planning design process in our ministry’s history. After a thorough desk review of the global state of HIV and the most recent academic research, we held stakeholder review sessions with African staff, U.S. staff, current clients, board members from Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and the U.S., and African church partner representatives. A cross-disciplinary working group of 20 African team members and three U.S. team members has analyzed all of the stakeholder feedback and reviewed internal program data from the past two years. Taking into account feedback, data, and findings from the desk work, this working group has created a three-year program plan that will be the basis of our next campaign. We look forward to sharing details of the upcoming campaign early in 2025.
CAMPUS UPDATE
So far in 2024, we have made significant progress on our Nairobi campus. We hosted a groundbreaking ceremony in January, have chosen a Kenyan architecture firm, and are finalizing the renderings of the master plan (pictured below). We hope to begin construction of the office block in November, which will put us on track to move into our new office space in 2025.
