Help 60 Vulnerable Children Stay in Their Families

Hello,

Thank you for supporting our project empowering families to become financially independent so they can support their children to grow up at home, not in an orphanage.

We have been working with families over the last year to provide business skills and financial literacy training so they can set up a business and manage budgets and finances. We've given them seed funding to start their own small business, enabling them to become financially independent and not reliant on hand-outs.

Despite the challenges and issues COVID-19 and the lockdowns presented, the parents and guardians have persevered and worked incredibly hard to make their businesses a success. We are delighted to report that we have just paid the final installment towards the children's school fees and every parent/guardian was able to contribute 70% towards the school fees as agreed.

This is part of a staggered reduction in support towards the school fees over the course of the year as eventually the families will be earning enough to no longer need our support. We are fully confident that the families will be able to pay the full school fees in the new year. In the meantime we are continuing to have regular check-ins with them to ensure their self-run group support is going well and that they, and the children, are all managing ok.

This is an incredible achievement and a huge step forward towards independence and empowerment for the families. It wouldn't have been possible without your generous and dedicated support, thank you very much for standing by us.

With best wishes,

Kirsty Erridge
Co-Director

kirsty@raisingfutureskenya.org.uk

Thanks to your generous support, the families were able to establish their small businesses in 2020.  As part of the plan to support them in becoming financially independent we agreed with the families that we would slowly phase out the support of the children’s school fees over the course of this year.

Thankfully after 9 long months of closures the schools were re-opened in Kenya in January which the children were delighted about!  Thanks to the profits the families were making on their businesses they had been able to save to contribute to the first school term fees.  We contributed up to 80% of the school fees and the families paid the rest.  We are glad to report that the majority of families were able to contribute the 20% towards their children’s school fees.  We will be slowly decreasing the amount we contribute this year as the families are able to increase their contribution.

Several of the family self-help groups have arranged group meetings with officials from the micro-finance institution Kenya Women Finance Trust (KWFT).  During the meetings, group members are encouraged to continue looking for opportunities to invest in the growth of their businesses such as applying for government tenders or development loans/funds in order to expand businesses and increase their income.  The group members are expected to continue making savings in their individual and group bank accounts so they can qualify for business loans with the bank and so they have savings for emergencies and school fees.  Members have reported a slow growth in their businesses due to the challenges of COVID-19 but they are committed to continue working hard to ensure that the businesses remain in operation and generate a good income to provide for their families. 

Sadly at the end of March Kenya went into another lockdown, all schools have been closed again and travel restrictions have been put in place to control the spread of COVID-19.  Our programme manager Winnie is in contact with the families to ensure they are managing ok.  In March Winnie also carried out a survey of the families to measure how the businesses have been impacting their household income so we will be monitoring this as the lockdown continues to ensure the families have all they need during these challenging times.

All this would not have been possible without your continuous giving towards the programme. The children’s welfare is our top priority, being in a financially secure, self-sufficient, loving family is the best place for them.  Thank you for making it possible for us to reunite the children back to their families, and more importantly being able to strengthen the family unit by improving their livelihoods to ensure that poverty will never mean children being placed in institutional care.