Kakamega Orphan Project

The Kakamega Orphan Project is a partnership between a local community in Kakamega, Kenya and its supporting organization based in the US. Together the Kenyans and the Friends of Kakamega offer shelter, education, food, and love to vulnerable children orphaned by the AIDS epidemic in western Kenya.

Friends of Kakamega, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization based in Freeport, Maine, raises funds and organizes sponsorships to support these orphans in rural Kakamega, Kenya.

Overview

The organization focuses primarily on a group of forty-eight orphans who live at the Kakamega Orphans Care Center. There, they receive caring adult supervision, three healthy meals a day, educational sponsorship guaranteed through high school, healthcare, and other basic needs. The children range from age eight to eighteen and include both boys and girls. However, the majority are younger girls, who are the most vulnerable group of orphans. All of these children already have sponsors in the USA or Canada, but a need for high school sponsors is growing as a disproportionate number of children move from primary school to high school. High school sponsorship, at $400 per year, costs double that of primary school sponsorship, which is the reason more sponsors are needed.

Along with the forty-eight residents who receive three meals a day, about fifty needy children in the neighborhood—mostly orphans—come to the Care Center's dining hall for a nutritious midday meal during the school week.

The fastest growing component of the project has been home based educational sponsorships. Because there are so many orphans in the Kakamega area, it is only possible to admit children from the most severe cases of need to the Care Center. Even then, it may only be possible to provide space at the Center for one out of four or five orphaned siblings. To try to fill the gap between those who are helped and those who are not, the neediest children for whom there is no space at the Care Center are offered home based sponsorships; usually, these children are staying with poor relatives or other guardians that have taken them in after their parents' passing. To date eighty children are sponsored in such a manner. An individual child is paired with an individual sponsor in the USA/Canada through Friends of Kakamega, and through this international friendship the child's school fees & supplies, mattress/blanket, a food budget, and other forms of very basic assistance are put together. The stipend is well supervised by volunteers in Kakamega, Kenya to ensure that sponsorship money is indeed spent on the child and his or her needs.

In late 2007 construction began on the new boys' dormitory, spurred by the Kenya governments insistence that boys and girls be housed in separate buildings.

The majority of funding for the Orphan Project comes from donors in the United States and Canada, through the Friends of Kakamega. However, local Kenyans of modest means also do their best to support the project. The final source of revenue has been through income-generating projects, including a farm, shop, and room/van rental to visitors.

Another outreach program of the Friends church organization, the African Great Lakes Initiative (AGLI) of the Friends Peace Teams, from time to time maintains a small office on the Care Center property.

History

The project was started in 2002, when Dorothy Selebwa from Kakamega visited the Northeast of the United States. Focusing especially on Quaker meetinghouses, her fundraising tour brought the plight of Kenya's AIDS orphans to the attention of many Quakers. One woman, Sukie Rice of Freeport, Maine, decided to start a fundraising organization to support the feeding program. Soon, Friends of Kakamega planned a dining hall, and later a dormitory-style Care Center. In 2004, the dining hall was opened, and by 2005 the dorms were completed and full of children.^[1]

Since then, the project has steadily grown. Today, there is a small library with several hundred donated books that have been brought to Kenya by the Friends of Kakamega. Additionally, a computer lab with eight donated laptops has been set up, providing instruction to the older children in word processing, internet, and other essentially skills. The idea behind these projects is to augment formal schooling with other educational opportunities, to try to help the children into jobs and a more promising future.^[2]

New Boys' Dormitory

In late 2006, the Government of Kenya notified the management committee in Kakamega that it is against government policy for boys and girls to live together under the same roof in group homes. As a result, they have given until early 2008 to remove one of the genders from the Care Center. After a desperate scramble, the management committee in Kakamega found a small parcel of land eight minutes' walk from the Care Center, and fundraising began to finance a new boys' dorm. As of late 2007, the land has been purchased and construction of the new dorm has begun, but there remains a need for funds to complete the project.

While separating boys and girls by building—and not just by floor—does seem like an unhelpful government demand, there is a positive element to this development. By building a new dormitory for boys, beds will be added to the project, and a large number of new girls may be brought to the main Care Center building. Orphaned girls are almost always in the most need, and relatives are often more reluctant to care for them than boys; thus, the beds freed up by the new boys' dorm will open badly needed new space for young girls.^[3]

Income Generating Projects

In 2005 the Friends of Kakamega (USA) and Care Center Management Committee (Kenya) agreed that the organization should work on making the project self-sustaining, so that in the distant future the project may continue regardless of whether or not it receives funds from the US. With that goal in mind, a number of income-generating projects have been pursued to generate revenue within the local Kakamega economy.

The farm has been the most important aspect of these income generating projects. Located in the village of Shimanyero, several miles from the Care Center, 5 acres (20,000 m²) of farmland have been purchased and brought under cultivation to support the project. Corn, potatoes, and staple food are grown for the Care Center's dining hall, and other vegetables (along with excess corn) are sold at market to bring in revenue to support the project. At harvest time, the older orphans help out with cutting the corn, offering them a chance to give back to the project and to connect with Kakamega's agricultural culture. An effort has been undertaken to shift the land from its fertilizer-dependent state toward organic production, but challenges remain due to the depleted nature of Kakamega's soil.

Dairy cows, honey bees, and laying hens are the other agricultural portion of the income-generating projects. Some cows are kept on the farmland, while other cows and dozens of laying hens reside at the homes of local volunteers who had extra space available. A small number of beehives are also placed on the farmland. Fresh cow's milk, honey, and eggs are all sold to support the running of the Orphan Project. Some of the honey is brought back to the United States and sold there (at a higher price) to raise additional funds.

The Friends Shop is located on the same parcel of land as the Care Center and the Amalemba Friends Church; local residents, church-goers, and Western volunteers all frequent the small shop with the knowledge that the profits will support these needy children. Along with regular goods like soap and cooking fat, the shop sells eggs, milk, and honey produced by the Orphan Project's agricultural initiatives.^[4]

Summer Service Trip

Every summer a group of ten to twelve North American volunteers travels to the Orphan Care Center in Kakamega. These volunteers are mostly from Maine, but also from other parts of the US and Canada; their ages range from high school sophomore to retiree. In Kenya, they meet the children and help out with homework, English, and daily life, developing bonds with the children. The focal point of the trip is a summer-camp type experience with the children as "campers" and the volunteers running activities as "camp counselors". Sports, woodworking, singing, dancing, sewing, and other activities fill the days with many opportunities for fun.

In the end this trip is educational and eye-opening for volunteers, who often dedicate themselves afterwards to raise funds for the project back home. The children, meanwhile, make friendships with loving volunteers, often get to meet their personal sponsors, and experience an exciting two weeks that could well be the highlight of their year.^[5]

Sponsorships and Donations

The most personal way to get involved is to sponsor an individual child. Primary school sponsorhip is $200 per year, which includes not just school books, uniform, and fees, but also a stipend for food and other necessities that will be used by the guardians or relatives to care for the sponsored orphan and his/her siblings. High School sponsorship is $400 per year, which includes the same necessities, as well as the much higher fees for secondary education.

Donations separate from sponsorships are very welcome and support the running of the Care Center, including costs of the feeding program, house parents, overhead such as electricity, wood for the fireplace, and general maintenance.

The Kakamega Orphan Project is pleased to be administered entirely by volunteers both in the US and Kenya. As a result, overhead does not include administrative salaries and is therefore very low. Many donors report that they were inspired to give to Friends of Kakamega because they know that the entirety of their contribution will be used on the orphans themselves, and not on administration to coordinate the Project.^[6]

References

External links

• Friends of Kakamega home page