Here are, in a quick presentation, the projects we have been involved in in the last 20 years of our action. This list is not exhaustive because we also respond to ideas as they come form the field if they are simple to implement and improve the beneficiaires situation.
Even though the region is blessed with rain and by Mt. Elgon streams, there is need for capturing water to channel it to the right use, for domestic use and animal feeding.
We have made bore holes so that girls would walk less distances to fetch this precious element.
We have also conducted drilling for groundwater which provided good quality and quantity for larger needs such as the needs of a school.
A team of youth have trained with a nurse on HIV/AIDS prevention in the community to reduce the spread of the disaster in the region.
Through our different medical camps safe sex, STDs, HIV/AIDS are taught to keep off from infections, this is also done during sports events and tournaments.
In order to secure food shortage we buy seeds for those who register for it through the committee and during difficult of starvation, we purchase food for widows and orphans, while waiting for the next harvest.
This support is occasional and justifiable during crises, we don’t wish to do this all the time. But find a sustainable solution for the hard periods, like irrigation and better sloughing of the soil.
While conducting our projects, we realized that women are more inclined, when given the chance, to support their family and their community.
So we have always tried to include as many women as possible in any structure we have been creating or promoting.
The status of women in Kenya still has some way to go, as it has in almost every other country as well. We strive to improve this status and promote equality in every possible field.
Among other actions we are conducting conferences in schools and churches to promote motivation and improve women status in every possible way.
We have funded an action to facilitate access to washable pads that allowed girls to continue attending the school even while menstruating, which has had a positive effect on their performance and therefore their future.
We set up a workshop for producing washable sanitary towels. The kit contains; 8 washable pads, soap, 3 panties and an instruction document on the first time use of the kit and a self-esteem document including information on STDs and HIV/AIDS.
The kits have served several thousand girls over the years, but the workshop never attained sustainability. We studied the root causes of this failure and decided to close the workshop and end the action for now.
This project has been initiated and mainly sponsored by “Soroptimist International” especially by the Suisse Romande clubs. Now that this part of the project has ended, we are ready to try again in different contexts like creating a workshop in women’s prisons
We wish for inhabitants to propose projects with strong business cases that can guarantee income and as much as possible eventually create jobs. We can finance for a start up, if there is a need we help to analyze the project at all angles before any decision is made.
Empowering people through job creation is the single best way to promote development. When people have a minimal amount of prosperity, they are able to pay for the services they need which in turn become sustainable. It is a virtuous circle.
Basing on education and business, we brought the idea to maturity by building a workshop with a tailoring class, local women are running it with a few girls. They are gaining professional skills and at the same time creating employment.
We have experimented with many different business ideas, we currently have a few running and creating jobs. Our goal is to become a sort of business incubator to help local entrepreneurs start their own companies.
We bought land in 2003, then construction started immediately, by spring 2005 the dispensary was equiped and the same year in summer, the infrastructure was inaugurated in the presence of the district authorities and the health.
Our medical staff is composed of a clinical officer, a nurse aide, a laboratory technician, receptionist, two guards and messengers to run errands for the dispensary.
Since the opening of the facility in July 2005, we have treated around 3’000 patients par year as we continued to develop the structure that has a maternity wing and an incinerator.
Twice a year we held medical camps and mobile clinics in some specialities such as, ophthalmology, gynaecology, dermatology, etc, circumcision, community services and HIV/AIDS preventions.
This project has been the most demanding financially, due to wages, drug provision, medical camps and permanent maintenance of the building.
Such a project cannot ever reach sustainability. We have to see it as a social venture. For this very reason, when funding became sparse, we had to stop supporting the structure. We hand it over to the local authorities who are planning to continue using it as a health facility. This closes nicely the loop of this ambitious project.
It is somewhat sad that funding could not allow us to continue, but we have to keep in mind that during these ten years of running this facility, lives vere saved.
For quite some time now, we have been doing child sponsoring that allowed children to go to school, vocational training and even professional courses by paying fees and covering their basic needs.
We have children in different hard situations, we have those that are orphaned through HIV/AIDS and we are glad to say that they are all fine and healthy and to top it all they are brilliant. They attend school in boarding facilities and have the entire time for their studies, which would not be the case if they were living with their extended families, i.e. uncles, aunts, grandparents, etc. a big number is now in high school while a few are still in primary school
We also support impaired children, we make sure to follow them until they get at least a profession which will allow them good integration as full citizens.
Bright students have also been our target, mostly to give them an opportunity to mature and avoid early marriages for young girls. We are promoting girl child education.
Sponsoring education has proven to be an excellent development action. Every adult getting a job and a salary will then be able to sponsor his family and community and to become himself a promoter of development.
School fees is paid directly to schools and sponsors can communicate with their loved ones in Kenya. There is someone in charge for visiting children in schools for a regular follow up and reporting.
On our visit to Khachonge, we meet with school heads, listen to the school’s needs to see what can be done. We have been supporting the local schools as well as other schools in our extending perimeter of action.
The biggest need is desks, toilets and water, classrooms are also needed due to the high population. There are also a team of young assistant teachers YAT, this is an opportunity for young bright students to give back to their community through teaching in primary schools, while they are waiting to join college or university, it is some kind of an intern-ship/apprenticeship type of work with a little wage in exchange of this service, it is also a way of keeping young people positively busy. Classes are over populated and school under staffed.
Schools meet over the following games; soccer, volleyball, netball tournaments, we support this games by offering games kits, all sports balls, frisbees.