Special Appeal for children displaced by drought

Before I begin to update you on the project so far I would like to say thank you to those of you who supported our work with displaced children and their families by donating on #WorldFoodDay. We raised over £1300 ($1800) in donations – all of which were matched 100% by GlobalGiving. These donations will be used to support training in bio-intensive agriculture for the families of children displaced by the drought in North-Eastern Kenya, who are now living in Kitale. As such we managed to reach 96% of our initial fundraising target. As the ongoing costs of support for the children and their families continues in the short term (for example providing school uniforms and ongoing social work visits), we have set a new target amount to reflect this.

As a bit of background to the project, Kitale - the county town of TransNzoia, has seen an influx of children and families from surrounding regions such as Pokot and Turkana which have been badly affected by prolonged drought.   Sadly, the influx of those displaced has been more than the town has been able to cope with, resulting in families, young people and children sleeping rough in the informal settlements around the town and on the streets.  Basic food costs have risen during this period, driven by the drought and political uncertainties resulting from two presidential elections in 2017.

One of the main issues that new arrivals to the area have is developing adequate housing for the needs of the area. A typical Turkana family is used to a desert home and build houses with limited resources. Because of the drought, whole families move south from this area looking for help. When they arrive in Kitale they build houses, like those in the picture above, in the informal settlements using plastic bags and sticks. These do not protect them adequately for the weather conditions experienced in Kitale, which can experience heavy rainfall at times. Families such as this can be assisted to return to Turkana and to develop small income-generating businesses such as drying and selling fish from Lake Turkana.    

At Child Resue Kenya we aim to get new arrivals off the streets as quickly as possible, while reuniting families displaced and broken apart by hardship.  In the short term, we provide: a drop-in centre that can be accessed by children and young people on the streets; short-term residential care for children wishing to leave the streets; and food baskets for families identified through their children on the streets and through our outreach work in the communities.  We then work with the families to find sustainable income-generating projects to enable them to return to their home areas or settle in a safe environment, and we assist them in enabling access to education for their children.

During August and September 2017 we reached 108 children, either on the streets or through referrals from other agencies, hospitals, and the police etc.;  46 of these entered short-term residential care, where they are able to receive counseling and non-formal education while efforts are made to trace their families. We also worked with 43 new families, providing necessary support to get them back on their feet so that their children can safely go home. Of these families we provided bio-intensive agriculture training to 28 families. The money we have raised through the GlobalGiving platform, that you have generously contributed to, and an additional grant from GlobalGiving, have significantly contributed to the costs of reaching those children and their families among them who have been displaced.  

Thank you again for all your support of our work.

This time of year is busy for CRK as we have been getting children ready to go back to school. It is also the term in which the end of year exams take place, so the children are always more nervous about this time of year and worried about how well they will do. The social workers have therefore been checking in and offering encouragement as they leave for school. We have also been making sure that all the candidates sitting for their Kenya Certificates of Primary or Secondary Education are ready for these national examinations and have all the resources that they need. Earlier in the year we had to ake sure that they had birth certificates as some children are not registered by their parents because it csts money. But the children cannot sit for national examinations without birth certificates, and later on, when they become adults, they are unable to get ID cards without them either.

Some of the children we have been seeing off to school are from families that have been displaced by the drought that has affected the Turkana region. The work that we do with these children has been directly supported through your donations. In August we were awarded a grant from Global Giving as part of their focus on the East Africa drought and famine crisis. We are very grateful for the support from Global Giving for the project. This grant will help us to support more children who are on the street as a result of being displaced by the drought. It is also going to pay for food baskets for the displaced families in the short-term and skills training in bio-intensive agriculture methods for the parents. We aim to make the families better able to develop sustainable sources of food and income so that they can feed themselves and their children in the future.

The grant does not cover the costs of supporting the children to go to school and we are therefore keeping the appeal open while we fundraise to meet these additional costs. We will therefore continue to report regularly on our work with the young people who have been displaced.

Thank you again for your ongoing support of CRK and our work with children in Kitale.