Provide school lunch to 3900 hungry Kenyan kids

This August 2019 I was able to travel to Kenya to take part in the three day empowerment retreats held for our Umoja student in high school and post-secondary. I was able to meet or see again children that I have met on previous trips.

The girls wrote letters of thanks for all the support that they have been given through our different services. Ultimately these children have excelled because of these services. Below is excepts from a three page letter written by Lorite who has been with us since 2009. She is now a fourth year Moi University student studying Maritime Business Management.

I have been sponosred by the Umoja Projdect since class 6 (2009). It was such a difficult moment striving to do well in acadmeics and focus on other responsbilities as a child back at home being  brought up by my mum, a single parent who is a househelp in one of the towns in Kenya. I had and I still live with my grandparents who are not employed. I therfore had difficulties to focus on education because all I could see is a dark future being that all I could view is a child in an environment where fee could not be afforded evern if I could pass now that even meals were sometimes a problem and I had to go on an empty stomach. So when the Umoja Project chipped in, my future brightened, that which was a blur was no more.

Since then the project has been always a family for me. The project ensured that apart from being comfortable in school providing meals for me, to cater for my lunch and also giving out sanitary towels so that during my menstrual cycle I could enjoy the season just like other children who could afford the same, I was comfortable at home as well being warmed by providing blankets. The revived hope by my new  family therefore kept me moving and compelled me to put more emphasis on my student to ensure that I do my best. 

Indeed, Umoja has always been a place to be. I term it as a home where lives are transformed.....In conclusion, keep beeing faithful and passionate in doing that which you do. May you never lack for the Lord God Almighty is your rewarder and in Him, you'll  never lack. 

Stay blessed.

Meet Nelly Ndenga, one of our volunteer Link Teachers with Bar-Anding'o Primary School.

Bar-Anding'o is one of the original primary schools in the Umoja Project's first group of ten schools in the lunch program. Nelly is the second Link Teacher to manage our program at this school. Nelly describes what we have have seen over and over at our now 19 schools:

• The lunch program keeps children in school.
• Good nutrition means children are better able to learn.
• Graduation rates have increased.
• School performance has improved.
• Umoja students are now in the top of the class rankings.

Please read Nelly's letter of thanks below.

Thank you for your support. Because of you, more than 3100 children eat lunch at school every day! 

Blessings,

Denise Soltis, Executive Director

Nelly Ndenga, Link Teacher

• Letter of thanks (PDF)