KOFUP currently supports eleven projects in Kenya. We would like to thank everyone who contributes. Without doubt you have helped, and are helping, to change lives and give hope.

Ujuang'a

Ujuang'a is in Asembo, a subsistence farming community close to the northern shore of the Winam Gulf in Lake Victoria.  In 2001 KOFUP began a partnership with the bishop of a local church to support their efforts on behalf of orphaned children.  The area is home to hundreds of orphans.

IMPACT:  The Ujuang’a Orphans’ Programme was KOFUP’s first project, providing funds for school and college fees, nutrition support, health-care and training in child-care and micro-finance.  After several years of capacity-building through our collaboration with the Omega Foundation, a Kenya-based NGO, the Ujuang’a community was enabled to access support from alternative sources. This freed up KOFUP funds for other initiatives. Our involvement with Ujuang’a has had a significant impact on very many young lives.

KAHAWA WEST

Kahawa West is a poor township about 30 Km north-east of the Kenya capital, Nairobi. It is named after the coffee plantations that used to cover the slopes. (“Kahawa” is the Swahili word for “coffee”). Nowadays it is a sprawling estate crowded with houses of varying quality and with large slum areas. Soweto is one of those slum areas in which members of the Community of Pope John XXIII, an Italian lay missionary society (http://en.apg23.org ), live and work.  

IMPACT:  KOFUP supports some of the Community’s work with orphans and street children.  Our funds have helped to develop facilities in their street-kids’ centre as well as paying fees for school and vocational training. Since the onset of COVID19, we have paid for rented accommodation for around 40, and masks, sanitiser and food for up to 70. Homeless youngsters have suffered greatly from strict lockdowns.

NEEDS:  KOFUP’s assistance has brought about a great improvement in the life-chances of some young people but the levels of deprivation in the slum are so profound that our current contribution only scratches the surface. 

PRECIOUS TEARS

Precious Tears Initiative is a community Based Organization founded in the year 2004, committed to serving disadvantaged children and young people , focusing on disease prevention, improving livelihoods, mental health, education, life skills, and sustainable household income.

Their purpose includes creating an enabling environment for education, social interaction and economic empowerment for girls and young women. PTI addresses the challenges they face, such as teenage pregnancy, which force many to abandon their goals and dreams in life.

Dropping out of school increases girls’ vulnerability to early marriage, gender-based violence, maternal death, drug abuse and depression, among other things.

KOFUP have collaborated with PTI since 2015. Our support funds mentorship camps for both girls and boys, and includes primary, secondary and further education sponsorship. With KOFUP’s backing, PTI also provides training in child development and entrepreneurship for teen mothers.

NEEDS:  To avoid early marriages which are often arranged by extended families against their will, orphaned or impoverished teenage girls need job opportunities for financial independence or funds to continue their education.  KOFUP’s challenge is to find ways to enhance sustainable income generation and economic security.

THE ATEMO MIXED SECONDARY SCHOOL

The Atemo Mixed Secondary School is a day school serving the extremely poor community of Ringa in western Kenya. The school has grown steadily over the years from 37 pupils when it first opened in 2000 to currently 513 – 311 boys and 202 girls (summer 2014) – over half of whom are either semi or total orphans. In Kenya, secondary school fees apply and many headteachers will turn away a child who cannot pay. At Atemo, headteacher, Joseph Nyariaro  seeks out children with potential and is particularly committed to educating bright children  from the poorest families and he won’t turn any of them away even though, in many cases, they can’t afford the fees. It was this enlightened approach that drew KOFUP into collaboration with the school in 2005. 

IMPACT: KOFUP funds make up for the shortfall in fees by providing bursaries for the poorest children. Over the years KOFUP funding has enabled Atemo to develop steadily into a fine secondary school, now one of the most popular in the district, with a growing number of children each year gaining grades that make them eligible for university entrance.

The Mama Always Programme was started at Atemo in 2009 in response to a request from Joseph regarding the needs of the girls who were missing a week of their education every month  because of their menstrual cycles. KOFUP funded the cost of sanitary wear and the absenteeism rate dropped dramatically in that first year. In the following year the top three students in the school were girls and the girls have continued to perform well with several achieving university standard grades each year since.

NEEDS: The greatest gift you can give a child is that of education. With continued funding we can give more children hope of being supported through secondary school to achieve grades that allow them to go onto further education. Headteacher Joseph Nyariaro hopes that within a decade there will be a growing number of professional people whose education at Atemo gave them the opportunity  to make a future for themselves and their families and who will give something back  by  supporting the next generation of children in the community. 

RAROKI

RICCDEP (Raroki Integrated Child & Community Development Programme) is a community initiative in a deeply impoverished rural area by the shores of Lake Victoria.  Their aim is “to use local resources to build the capacity of the local community to tackle their own challenges and those of their neighbourhood”.

The population of about 300,000 depend on subsistence farming despite irregular rainfall and poor soil – the area got its name, “Raroki”, from the “rocky” nature of the soil and landscape.  Some people, especially widows, engage in quarrying stone for use in buildings. This is done by hand and is heavy, dangerous work, offering small rewards for back-breaking labour.

KOFUP trustees first visited RAROKI in 2005 and were impressed by RICCDEP’s efforts to mobilise the community to tackle their own problems.  They were, however, struggling with the growing number of orphans as well as the rising death rate of the 25-40 year-olds.

The trustees felt this was an area of dire need and that the RICCDEP leaders were people we could work with.

KOFUP was presented with a well constructed and detailed funding proposal for a programme to support at least 300 children.  The projected cost of the plan was, and still is, beyond our financial resources. We help with the provision of schooling for orphans and have committed to increase the level of assistance as funds allow.

PANDIPIERI

Kisumu, on the shores of Lake Victoria, is the third largest city in Kenya. The many slums which surround it are home to thousands of people struggling to earn a living and provide for their families in the most basic living conditions. HIV/AIDs remain major health problems along with TB and malaria. In the heart of the Nyalenda slum, the Pandipieri Centre provides informal schooling for street-kids, a streetchild rehabilitation centre, healthcare, nutrition support, vocational training, including a thriving art school.
Since the early 2000s KOFUP has been funding an orphans’ programme, to enable orphans and desperately poor children and young people to access education through paying fees, providing food, clothing and other basic needs.

St Luke’s Mini-Nursery

Two corrugated iron shacks in Kisumu’s Manyatta slum house a nursery school for the orphans and vulnerable children of the area. Early years schooling in Kenya is not free, yet is necessary for admission to primary school. The “Mini-Nursery” prepares the kids for primary school and provides meals without demanding fees.
KOFUP has helped with the provision of clean water and underwrites the feeding programme.

St Christina’s Elite Nursery/Primary School

Kisii town is over 2 hour’s drive from Kisumu, in the fertile Kisii Highlands. St Christina’s School in Suneka, 5 miles west of Kisii, offers high quality education to children from the surrounding area. It is a private, fee-paying school but is committed, with KOFUP’s support, to providing guaranteed places for orphans or vulnerable or destitute children.