what do we do?
Since March 2020, we’ve been supporting families through COVID-19 — providing emergency packages of food, soap, masks, hygiene advice and sanitary pads to help keep kids safe and healthy. Whilst schools were closed, our social workers continued to provide remote support to our sponsored students, calling them regularly to chat through how they were getting on, encourage them to continue studying, and help them deal with any issues.
why do we do it?
Schools were closed in Kenya for nine months in 2020 — leaving children at home struggling to learn and hungry without the free school meals we usually provide. Meanwhile, lockdown measures left many parents and guardians who live day-to-day even in ‘normal’ times without any means of earning an income. This left kids extremely vulnerable to hunger, malnutrition and abuse. Meanwhile, teen pregnancy rates soared, with stories of girls forced to trade sex for sanitary pads due to rising poverty levels. Finally, without the structure and monitoring of school, many kids and young people struggled with anxiety and depression, and were at higher risk of drug and alcohol abuse in this context. All of these factors increased the risk that some children would never return to school when they re-opened in January 2021.
what impact do we have?
The emergency packages quite simply helped families to survive. Our support helped to keep children mentally and physically healthy, away from child labour, safer from abuse, and studying to the best of their abilities at home. In January 2021, every single one of our sponsored students returned to secondary education — a huge achievement.
in 2020, we helped 368 families get through covid-19— providing the equivalent of 112,601 meals, 2,108 bars of soap, 1,740 sanitary pads and 634 masks.
““It really gives [families] hope for a better tomorrow. Just the knowledge that there are selfless people out there supporting strangers without bias or discrimination leaves them optimistic about the future.””