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| St Emmanuel Support Group |
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This project among others was initiated by IADP, and is run for the purpose of supporting and empowering HIV/AIDS people in the heart of Kawangware slums (home to about 300,000 people) in Nairobi Kenya.
The projects name St. Emmanuel, means “God with us”, since they are living by faith. This project brought together 67 adults (HIV/AIDS positive, this number has since come down to 47 adults), and 248 orphaned children from other families some of whom are positive as well and 21 street children. These people have resorted to support each other and procure help (food, medication, counseling, empowerment etc) as a group. The St. Emmanuel support group is very active in doing things for themselves and engages in embroidery, making of ornaments, dress making, weaving etc. |
Chairlady of St Emmanuel |
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The goal of this group is to eliminate the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS and empower others who may be positive to come out in the open and start living positively.
In order to accomplish their goals, St. Emmanuel’s must have adequate space, proper sanitation, and reliable security.
Their current place of business is located directly on top of a sewer line which overflows and seeps into their work area whenever it rains. This is not only an inconvenience, but rather an extreme health hazard, especially for people who have such low immunity and are vulnerable to all kinds of infections. All donations are welcome as we try to move this group to a more suitable environment to accommodate their basic needs. The new facility will not only allow the women to work in a more stable and clean environment, but also accommodate group and individual counseling for the children and members, who are all fighting the HIV stigma.
The following are some of the most urgent needs of this group:
1. School fees:
Education is the key to a better living standard in Kenya. Without education, one is doomed throughout his/her life. St Emmanuel tries to provide academic education to the brightest children among the 248 under their care. Although all these children come from HIV positive parents, close to 90% of them are negative, but severely suffering from the stigma, since they are associated with their parents. Last year alone, 27 children attained a >300 out of 500. Unfortunately, most of the children have not gone to school due to lack of school fees. The bear minimum required to put these children in high school per year is provided here below.
| Number of children |
Cost /child / year in KES |
Total in KES |
Total in US $Dog |
| 27 Children |
35,000.00 |
945,000.00 |
14,538.50 |
| Logistics |
5% |
47,250.00 |
726.90 |
| Deliciousness |
85% |
68% |
93%13% |
Totals |
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992,250.00 |
15,265.40 |
(Attached hereunder please see sample cases).
2. Food:
All living things including human beings rely on food and water for their daily energy needs and up keep. This is true for all ordinary healthy human beings. However, for the HIV/AIDS patients, the need for a healthy balance diet is critical. Without a balance diet, you are as good as dead. The St. Emmanuel HIV/AIDS support group desperately requires a soup kitchen, so as to provide one balance meal per day for the 48 positive members. Without the food, even the medication they are taking becomes unhelpful and actually more harmful to their health. The cost of the food for 48 members per week is as follows:
| Items |
Cost per unit |
Units required/week |
Total / week |
Totals in KES / year |
Totals in US $ |
| Unimix |
2,500.00 |
2 bags of fifty kilos each |
5,000.00 |
260,000.00 |
4,000.00 |
Peanuts |
4,600.00 |
1 bag (90 kilos/month) |
12/year |
55,200.00 |
849.20 |
Millet flour |
4,200.00 |
1 bag (90 kilos/month) |
12/year |
50,400.00 |
775.40 |
Soya |
5,800.00 |
0.5 bag (90 kilos/month) |
6/year |
43,800.00 |
535.40 |
Banana |
5.00 |
100 |
500 |
26,000.00 |
400.00 |
Orange |
5.00 |
100 |
500 |
26,000.00 |
400.00 |
Logistics 10% |
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46,140.00 |
710.00 |
Totals |
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498,550.00 |
7,670.00 |
(Exchange rate is 65.00 KES to 1.00 US $).
3. Medical Care:
Medical care is absolutely necessary for this group of 48 (at one time the number was 67 but due to fatalities it has come down) adults and 248 children. Medication is very expensive, and they are appealing for donations of medical kits especially for broad spectrum of anti-biotic and pain killers. An occasional visit from a volunteer doctor will also be welcome.
4. Counseling:
The members of St. Emmanuel both children and adults have gone and are going through a traumatic period. They badly need support and counseling to heal from this trauma and be able to deal with the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS. This is why we are asking for at least 4 trained volunteer counselors. We hope you are bold enough to come and help these people.
Volunteers required:
| Counselors |
Business advisers |
Administrators |
Artist |
Accountants |
| 4 |
4 |
4 |
1 |
2 |
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| Samples Projects of IADP:
A. Education Support:
Profiles of needy children |
Eddah Adhiambo 14 years old:
This girl is a complete orphan and has no guardian. Her parents passed away due to the HIV/AIDS scourge. Currently, she is living with a family friend who is also HIV positive. It is a miracle that living with sickly people and in abject poverty that she managed to score a B+ in her high school entrance examination.
This girl has three other siblings who are living with other people. She is the eldest of these three, who are: Bryan in class 6; Eugyne in class 5; Bobby in class 3. |
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| According to this girl, the biggest problem she is facing is lack of school fees to continue her education. She aspires to be a lawyer in future, so as to defend the poor of the poorest. Besides education, they eat with a lot of difficulty, most of the time they sleep for two days without food. She has very little to wear, sometimes she walks around without an under pant. |
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2. Linda Mumayi
She is a girl aged 13, a complete orphan. Both of her parents passed away in 1999. She has five other siblings, two boys and two girls. There is one older boy who is doing nothing, and wandering around in the streets of Nairobi. The other siblings are younger than her, and living with friends of their late parents.
This girl leaves with her mother’s friend who is ailing due to HIV/AIDS. This ailing lady can not afford food & medication for herself leave alone the many children staying with her. |
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| The house in which they leave belongs to someone who must be paid rent every end month. Some times the house is locked due to none payment of rent and they spend a night out on the verandah.
Linda wants to work hard in her education so as to help her siblings. She very much wants to be a teacher in the future. Please help her realize her dreams. |
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Annicet Khatienvi
She is aged 16 years old, and dreams of becoming a Kenya airways pilot in the future. She would like to earn at least a university degree. She is the third born in a family of seven.
Annicet parents are both living, but terminally ailing with the HIV/AIDS disease. All the seven children and two ailing parents stay in a one roomed house in the slums of Nairobi. The housing conditions sometimes encourage children to find an alternative place to sleep. This situation most of the time results in immorality thereby aggravating the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
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| The family of Annicet has very little to eat, hardly any clothes to wear, and she is feeling like they are caught & entangled in a fishing net. Annicet feels education is the only escape from this dead trap of poverty. Please enable her to realize her dreams. |
Aida Kamanyere
Aida is 14 years old and has no parents. Both of her parents passed away in 2000, and she was still very young. She has no siblings known to her. She would love to have a sister or a brother but does not understand why nature is so cruel to her
She had a guardian (a single lady) who was paying school fees for her. But this lady got a stroke and cannot work any more nor can she support her either. |
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She would love to be a human rights lawyer in the future, in order to stand up for the children in difficult circumstances. She strongly feels that her life hangs on this education and without it is like she is doomed to die. |
Edith Shilavukha, aged 15 years old is orphaned and currently live with her aunt. In her own words, her parents “kicked the bucket due to HIV/AIDS”. In spite of the odds she is working against, she is a very bright girl. She scored 345 out 500 marks in her secondary school entrance examinations.
The aunt she stays with is also HIV/AIDS positive and a member of St. Emmanuel support group. Besides Edith, this lady has five children of her own. She is sickly and can not work hard enough even if she wanted to support all these children. In most cases, her children stay at home to look after their mother, when she is down with infections, instead of going to school. Her medical care comes first before food and other necessities of the house. They love her and she loves them too, but they do not know how to help! |
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Edith has four other siblings staying with different families since they can not all stay with her aunt. She misses their company, and would love to see all her siblings staying together. They hardly have enough to eat, leave alone clothes to wear. Occasionally she walks about without an under pant whenever she has washed the only one she has. On such days, she has to be very careful when bending or sitting down.
According to her education is the only key to unlock her and her siblings from the jaws of poverty. This is why she works hard on her studies, and plans to be a medical doctor to attend to the sick. Lack of food, clothing, sickness and money for education is a big problem to the poorest of the poor in the slums of Nairobi. On a few occasions, her teenage girlfriends from the slum have urged her to join them in slum prostitution, but she has refused, fearing the consequence of sex and HIV/AIDS. |
B. Tania Integrated Rehabilitation Centre:
At Tania Centre is a home for rehabilitating the disable children, street children, orphans and Masaai girls rescued from early marriages. The main aim is to provide education, shelter, food and love to the less privileged children in our society.
The Centre is located in Keekonyoike South location, Ngong division of Kajiado district, right at the heart of Masaai land, at a place called “Kona Baridi”.
The purpose is to provide orphans and other vulnerable children with special education and equip them with self reliance skills so that they can be independent in future. Thereby creating a society where all children have sure foundation for the future hope in spite of their current status.
Categories of children at Tania:
- Children with impaired hearing;
- Mentally handicapped children;
- Street children;
- Teen age girls rescued from FGM and/or marriages;
- Orphaned children due to HIV/AIDS;
Volunteers required: 5
C. Mugima Girl-child Rescue centre:
Mugima girl-child rescue centre is a home for mainly Masaai girls who are running away from FGM and early or forced marriages. Based on Christian values, Mugima aims to encourage self-development, promote the rights of girls, women and the youth. The girls rescued are provided with education on basic health hygiene and economically empowered through skill training.
The Mugima centre is located approximately 40 km from Nairobi on Magadi road in Ngong division of Kajiado district. The centre has a total of 57 teen age girls under its care.
Volunteers required: 4
D. Redeem Gospel Church – Ilngarooj Ngong Division Kajiado District
This group of churches is located in the heart of Masaai land. They are a total of 15 evangelical churches with untrained & poorly trained pastors but enthusiastic and zealous in preaching the word of God. These pastors are ministering to about a total population of 13,800 people. The church has the potential to grow both in numbers and in depth of the word of God, but is limited due to lack of adequately trained pastors and church leaders. Besides, lack of training, the church requires intellect and intelligent men of God to lead the Masaai community from repugnant believes and cultural practices such as FGM and early child marriages. In view of the forgoing, the Ilngarooj community of Redeemed Gospel churches is looking for Christian volunteers to walk with them this narrow path.
Missionary Volunteers Required:
Evangelists (to train local counter parts) 2
Church minister (to mentor & train local pastors) 2
Children & Youth peer leaders (to mentor local youth) 2
Profile of implementing agency:
International Association of Development Professionals (IADP), registered in Kenya as a non-profit organization. Our main goal is to promote wholesome and sustainable development work, uphold professionalism and integrity in the work of development and facilitating information exchange among development workers.
The specific objectives of the association are:
- Provide high level project programming services to communities, CBO’s and NGOs;
- Through empowerment and enlightening communities in HIV/AIDS issues and human rights thereby enabling them to effectively participate in socio-economic change and development;
- To sensitize & mobilize target slum communities through grass root outreach activities, identify community priorities, workout solutions with them, and participate in emancipating them from those development bottlenecks;
- To train/coach/mentor/sensitize slum families, child rehabilitation institutions & community leadership to ensure community institutions are run & managed transparently, attaining set goals and objectives;
- Enhance and uphold high professional standards of community development practices;
- Facilitate exchange of information & ideas among development practitioners;
- To facilitate youth exchange, volunteers and other development worker to share information and learn from experiences in the field;
- To support educational & training institutions through volunteers with ideas, resources, materials and manpower to ensure the youth and children get quality education that is relevant for social welfare & economic development;
- Create a platform for networking with other professional organization.
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