PROVIDING HEALTHCARE TO CHILDREN IN RURAL KENYA

Dear Partners,

The Children’s Health Program (CHEP) is more than giving children sustainable access to medical care during their formative years when in school. The initiative is concerned about the children themselves and their continued wellbeing even when they are away from school. The pandemic presented unique challenges where our CHEP children had to be away from school for the most part of 2020 due to the high risk of infection as well as uncertainty about the nature of the disease. Similarly, many companies reduced their operations or suspended them altogether, meaning that workers who depended on short contracts or menial jobs had no alternative means to earn their livelihoods.

Many parents found themselves out of work and struggling to make ends meet. Routine household activities such as buying groceries became difficult to do. In some extreme cases, CHEP beneficiaries and their families were facing the risk of certain starvation.

What brought about our intervention?

The story of a widow was found cooking stones for her eight children to make them believe she was preparing food for them.

Mrs. Kitsao hoped they would fall asleep while they waited for their meal but her hungry children had not been deceived for long by her delaying stone-cooking tactics.

"They started telling me that they knew I was lying to them, but I could do nothing because I had nothing.

"Her neighbour had come around to see if the family was OK after hearing the children crying, and shocked at what she saw alerted the media to her plight.

She used to wash laundry locally but such work is hard to come by now as people have restricted their interactions because of Covid-19. A gang killed Ms Kitsao’s husband in 2019.

Many beneficiaries of CHEP and their families live in conditions that are similar to the one of Mrs. Kitsao and as a Foundation working closely with these families, it was certain that we needed to intervene. To deal with these dire straits, Kianda Foundation initiated a food drive that enabled these families purchase kitchen pantry staples such as flour, sugar, salt, cooking oil, rice and beans. Through the food pack drive, we were able to distribute food vouchers and some food stuffs to beneficiaries of CHEP and their families to ensure that they have access to food that would sustain themselves in the short term as the economic situation continues to improve in the country.

Links:

• Link to CHEP program on Kianda Foundation's website

Jane is 19 ½ years old, former CHEP beneficiary of Umoja Primary School from class one to seven.  She is the last born of seven, of a single mother. Her mother was working in Kamonde Tea estate where in 2008 she started ailing from a heart condition and in 2014 was retrenched from work as her condition worsened. This mother moved upcountry near Naivasha. Jane was left to stay with a brother who does casual work. In 2015 she joined the mother who sent her to stay with an aunt and continue school in class 7. Jane started getting sick and was in and out of hospital, treated for Malaria, Typhoid etc.

In January 2016 she was diagnosed with diabetes type 1. The aunt did not want to care for her so she went to live with her sick mother who was very weak and had no money. Jane stopped school at 15 years old and would do casual work to earn a living for the two of them. Both of them sick. Her siblings did not help them. Her mother died in 2017.

Mary her sister a single mum of two came to live with Jane and later left her to look after her two children.  Jane moved to Nairobi and Kiambu to look for her brothers. As she kept being sick and constantly being admitted in different hospitals they abandoned her at Mama Lucy Hospital in 2018. In 2019 she was admitted in Tigoni Hospital where she met by chance one of our CHEP nurses who had gone there for an inquiry.

In July this year 2020 Jane was in hospital for two weeks and afterwards did not know where to go. She rang the CHEP nurse who was able to organize for a well-wisher to pay her bill and she was released. A place was found where she could stay while studying the way forward.  At present, Jane is living with a couple who like her very much but cannot maintain her. Going forward, through your generous support, CHEP is looking after Jane’s health with medication and her special diet and has also found a well-wisher who will cover her return to school and living expenses.