To date along with thousands of much-needed facemasks, Springs of Hope Foundation has given out a total of 1,240 food hampers over a period of 19 weeks (60 food hampers every week) to the elderly, persons with disabilities, child-headed households, and other vulnerable members of the community in the targeted areas. We work closely with the local community cluster leaders, elders, and local leaders to identify the beneficiaries with affirmative action to ensure only the very needy are enlisted for support. Many of our recipients are elderly grandmothers who have been left with the burden of caring for several small grandchildren.
Imagine...1,240 food hampers with enough nutritious beans, maize, and green vegetables to feed a family of four for a week.
That's 34,720 meals that vulnerable children may have missed out on over the past 5 months.
All Kenyan schools remain closed until January 2021, at the earliest. However, we are still permitted to provide a safe home and care for our young women who are in need of a Safehouse and protection.
To date, our young women have made over 12,500 facemasks to benefit the most vulnerable in our community.
While Springs of Hope Foundation targets the elderly, disabled, child-headed households, and very needy within the county we also work closely with other community organizations such as the Lions Club, Rotary and Rotaract clubs to get as many much-needed facemasks out to the remote communities as quickly as possible. Below are some of those beneficiaries.
We urgently need your support to keep life-saving food flowing to the most vulnerable in our community.
Borders have closed and supply chains are affected in areas most at risk. Please help us ensure that hungry children, the elderly, and vulnerable do not suffer the brunt of this pandemic.
If you’re able, please make a donation to our community outreach efforts. If you’re unable to donate at this time, there are many other ways you can support us! You can advocate for us by sharing our mission with a family member or friend. Even a quick mention on your social media would mean the world to us.
https://www.facebook.com/kijijimission/
In times like this, we’re reminded of how interconnected we all are. Thank you for being part of our community. Without you, none of it is possible.Stay safe and well,
Jennifer Hughes-Bystrom
Founder/CEO
Springs of Hope Foundation
Links:
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Last week the president of Kenya announced that all primary and secondary schools will remain closed until January 2021. Fortunately, we have been allowed to keep our students living with us in a safe environment. Our only focus in this period of COVID 19 has been to donate food and face masks to as many vulnerable and needy people in the county as possible. Most of the residents in the outer lying area are casual laborers who are paid after working. With the current pandemic, the residents are unable to get employment and feed their families. Some of the families have been going to the area chief to beg for food and a lot have been foregoing meals. Springs of Hope Foundation's sole purpose since the arrival of Covid 19 last March has been donating food and face-masks to vulnerable families. Our target families are the elderly, terminally ill patients, persons with disabilities, and child-headed households, all of these cases are identified with the assistance of the area chief together with house cluster leaders. So that we can maintain order and be assured our donations go to the neediest, we will continue to do the food distributions at the chief's camp. Some of the cases that we have recently come across that touched our hearts included;
Child headed families- There were several families in these categories but the most vulnerable of all was a family of six. The firstborn being a form two student at a nearby secondary school. Their mother went to Saudi Arabia to work as a maid in January 2020, but she has never sent a penny home to meet her family’s needs. This therefore left, Irene, a fourteen-year-old girl, to step into her mother's shoes. Irene together with her five siblings lives in a tiny one-roomed, mud-walled house. They pay Kshs. 300 (US $3.00) rent which they can barely afford. Irene juggles between school and menial work to support her siblings. It's long since they talked with their mother thus they don't know how she is fairing in the Gulf and this clearly is distressing to them.
Vulnerable families- The area chief also identified a case of a woman who is approximately 80 years, a widow who is ailing from asthma, and high blood pressure. The case is vulnerable in that, the elderly woman is the sole breadwinner to her six grandchildren. With her advanced age and sickness, she has been left at the mercy of neighbors and well-wishers to stay alive. The family lives in a rented mud-walled house in Mang’u area paying rent of Kshs. 500 ( US $5.00) per month. The elderly grandmother could not manage to come to the pick-up location to collect her food hamper. This prompted the team to visit her home. She could not hold back tears when her grandchildren brought the food hamper to her.
Kenya has continued to experience enhanced rainfall resulting in massive flooding. The government of Kenya recently announced that 203 Kenyans have died in floods and 100,000 households have been destroyed. In Nakuru County, families have been displaced following floods caused by heavy downpours since the 3rd week of April. The flooding in these communities has been blamed on poor drainage and sanitation with most drainage systems being clogged. Communities close to Lake Nakuru have been forced to relocate after overflow from the lake sparked fears of a humanitarian crisis.
We urgently need your support to keep life-saving food flowing to the most vulnerable in our community.
Borders have closed and supply chains are affected in areas most at risk. Please help us ensure that hungry children, the elderly, and vulnerable do not suffer the brunt of this pandemic.
If you’re able, please make a donation to our community outreach efforts. If you’re unable to donate at this time, there are many other ways you can support us! You can advocate for us by sharing our mission with a family member or friend. Even a quick mention on your social media would mean the world to us.
https://www.facebook.com/kijijimission/
In times like this, we’re reminded of how interconnected we all are. Thank you for being part of our community. Without you, none of it is possible.Stay safe and well,
Jennifer Hughes-Bystrom
Founder/CEO
Springs of Hope Foundation
Links:
Dear *|FNAME|*,
I hope and trust that this finds you and your loved ones healthy and well in these unprecedented times. We stand alongside you in supporting our fearless frontline workers and first responders globally. They give us hope and inspire us daily with their courage.
As trusted allies and supporters of our work at Springs of Hope Foundation I wanted to share how we are pivoting our efforts to protect our education programs, and most importantly, the women, girls, and families we serve in our community in Nakuru, Kenya during these rapidly changing times. As you know, many African countries are currently being devastated by the exponential rise of COVID-19 on the continent. ICUs, emergency rooms, sanitary water for hand washing and social distancing are provisional luxuries afforded to a tiny percentage of the population of Sub Sahara- Africa.
This week our area chief informed us that while traveling outside their homes, everyone must wear a face mask. That's a pretty daunting challenge for most people in our community. These are women who have to fetch water in 20 Liter Jerry cans daily and visit the market several times a week as they can't afford to purchase food in bulk. There simply aren’t any face masks available to the poorest, most vulnerable members of our community.
We were in the final stages of making free school uniforms for the children at Slum Hill Primary, to be delivered next month. However, with the unknown of exactly when school will begin again in Kenya, we have instantly switched gears and are now making face masks,to be given out to our community for free. In the months ahead, or maybe weeks ahead, I’m sure we’ll also be making scrubs for the health care workers, and quite frankly, anything else that will be needed in the upcoming, unknown difficult times ahead.
In truth, I never expected this to be our challenge and focus this spring in Kenya. But our ability to pivot and answer this unexpected call to action and meet the ever-changing needs of our community is a testament to your collective support. Our work is a reflection of the inspiration you give us daily through your encouragement and outreach. Our community in Kenya has never needed us more.
Thank you for all you do to support women's and girl’s education and empowerment globally.
Warmest regards,
Jennifer Hughes-Bystrom
Links:
As with almost every other corner of the world, COVID-19 arrived in Kenya a little over a week ago. Fortunately, the Kenya government had ample time to prepare and acted immediately. To date, there are only 7 cases. On Monday this week, the Kenyan government announced mitigation policies to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in Kenya. It has directed all schools to close for the next 30 days, beginning immediately. Similar measures have been taken in other East African countries including Rwanda and Tanzania. My immediate worry was that, while we’re a vocational training college, coming under the same mandate, sending our students home to overcrowded slums would be much worse than staying put in our facility and self-isolating until things settle down. We spoke to our area chief about the situation. Unfortunately, his hands were tied, and we were required to send the students back to their respective villages.
However, we’ve been given a very unexpected reprieve at the very unfortunate expense of our two volunteers from Germany, Kira, and Sara who arrived in Kenya the day before the government banned all but returning citizens and residents from entering Kenya. After spending the weekend sightseeing in Nairobi, they met up with our office manager, Beryl and traveled back to Nakuru together on a crowded minibus. The following morning Beryl mingled with our students, introduced our volunteers to our students and then learned of the government mandate to close all schools. Learning that we had two visitors from Germany staying with us, the health department put our project into quarantine for two weeks. For us, that’s good news, as the students are safe for the time being. Our teacher, Martha, who is also under quarantine from home, checks in on the students daily.
As for Kira and Sara…they have taken their quarantine admirably. Sadly, visiting us was the first leg of their one year journey across Sub Sahara Africa. One a social worker and child advocate and the other an engineer, they were so excited about the contribution they could make to our students' personal empowerment, growth, and education. They have had to remain separated from our students in our guest house, with no social interaction. As soon as their two week quarantine period is over they will be returning to Germany.
As you can probably appreciate, this is going to be a particularly tough time for fundraising for charities and NGO’s worldwide. Thank you for your ongoing support of Springs of Hope Foundation. Your support will ensure that our young women and staff can work through these issues and resume providing free, quality education as soon as it is practicable.
Warmest regards,
Jennifer Hughes-Bystrom
We will keep you updated but please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions at jenniferhughes@springsofhopefoundation.org
Links:
Meet Margaret, along with just a few of her very proud family members on Margaret's graduation day earlier this month.
Margaret comes from a family of twelve, four brothers and seven sisters. She is the last born in the family. Her father is a casual laborer and was not able to take her to college after her form four. Margaret was born as a normal child, able to hear and talk. She went to her nursery class as a normal child. When she was in class two, she developed recurring headaches. She was hospitalized for three months, during this time the worst happened and she lost her hearing ability completly. Her parents could not believe what had happened to their daughter, but afterwards enrolled her into Ngala school for the deaf. During her last year of high school, she lost her mother, who had been struggling with poor health for several years. This left Margaret devastated. She says life has never been the same since losing her mother, until she came to Springs of Hope Foundation's Kijiji Mission project and now sees a bright future ahead
There is indeed a bright future ahead for Margaret, along with the other young women who recently graduated from our 12-month course earlier this month. They have all been offered jobs at a local company. That’s right…ALL of the young women, including our hearing-impaired students.
It can be very difficult for the deaf to find employment in Kenya, or anywhere else in the underdeveloped world for that matter, so we are thrilled to know that they will all go on to paid employment when they return from a very well earned Christmas break in January.
We are so very grateful for your continued support in 2019. As we look forward to a new intake of young women in the new year our wish is that you continue to include Springs of Hope Foundation in your charitable giving.
Wishing you and your loved ones a wonderful Christmas and a New Year filled with Many Blessings.
Jennifer Hughes-Bystrom
CEO
Springs of Hope Foundation.org
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