Sustainable Food Project for Children in Kenya

Thank you for standing with us so that our families living below poverty line are able to graduate from poverty.

We are so happy to report that we are now having adequate water to sustain our produce at our community garden.  We have a total of 50 different beds and we are super excited that they are producing fresh organic food. The garden has enabled 13 women to get a job three days a week and has boasted the economic standard of our community through the buying and selling of our fresh produce.

We don't stop at that.  Our garden enables our kiddos at the orphanage to eat fresh organic vegetables and fruits. Because of the water well, we are able to produce vegetables year round.  This year we added a bean plantation that will be able to provide protein to the kids at our school and the orphanage.  We are happy report that we harvested the beans for the first round, giving as 200 kilograms of beans. Our kids are currently eating the beans that gives them protein for the medicine to work well with their bodies.

During leisure time, our kids also have time to learn more about gardening as we want them to grow up knowing where the food they are eating is coming from.  The garden also helps women working to have skills and knowledge of gardening so they can also implement it in their homes.

The team here at the American Foundation for Children with AIDS thanks you for supporting this project and the work we do for the children in Africa.  As you make decisions regarding your giving for the rest of the year, please keep us in mind so we can continue our good work through 2023 and beyond.  If you would like to learn even more about what we do or how you can meet some of the children you have helped, please contact Tanya Weaver at tweaver@AFCAids.org. 

I want to update the donors on the food security here. Loads of fresh organic food are still being produced and we are working extra hard towards sustainability of the project. Our garden project is showing signs of success and we are super happy to see where we came from and where we are now and the future is a success .

We are directly helping approximately 670 lives  in our community, these figures include the kids we are taking care of at the orphanage as you can see in the attached photo, with their super beautiful smiles. We are also happy that we can produce food to feed them allowing us to save some funds for the orphanage overhead operations. 13 HIV/Aids affected women are still able to work three days a week and are able to stand on their own. 

One of the blessings that we are forever grateful for this year is the provision of a water well which is able to sustain the watering of all our food. This is a life changing project that will forever help in all our projects . We used to rely on handmade borehole that could not support the expansion of our garden and bean farms and today I am happy to report that we have enough water to sustain us forever.  On behalf of Restoring Hopes, we are forever grateful for partnering with AFCA to ensure that we become self-sustainable.

The team here at the American Foundation for Children with AIDS thanks you for supporting this project and the work we do for the children in Africa.  As you start to make decisions regarding your giving this year, please keep us in mind so we can continue our good work through 2023 and beyond.  If you would like to learn even more about what we do or how you can meet some of the children you have helped, please contact Tanya Weaver at tweaver@AFCAids.org. 

I would love to share yet another update of a woman working on our project. Attached is the photo of Mama Susan, she started working with us in 2019 until now and is happy with her work knowing the impact of the project in her life. Today she is harvesting fresh cowpeas from our garden ready to go to market while the other women are busy weeding and watering and planting some seeds.

Mama Susan is one of many women whose work here has transformed her life for the better, she has been a widow for 15 years taking care of her four children. With no job available she used to walk to the neighborhood and seek any job she could find so as to get at least food to feed her kids. As these unsecured  jobs were not even easily available, the family could not afford three meals a day leading to her kids being malnourished and not being able to attend school on a daily basis. Medication issues were another far reaching milestone for her.

Securing a job in our projects has been a life-saving medicine in her life, I am happy to report that Mama Susan is "graduating" from poverty state life to a sustainable state life. She loves the fact that she has a job that is secure for her from where she can get her daily bread and learn more about agriculture. She is now in a position to eat well, take her kids to school and happily live a dignified life that every woman deserves. She says she is in a position to even do a little saving to help her in an emergency, WHAT AN IMPACT!!!  Thank you so much for helping us put a smile on their faces and hope back into their lives.   We are so grateful for your support.

The team here at the American Foundation for Children with AIDS thanks you for supporting this project and the work we do for the children in Africa.  As you start to make decisions regarding your end of year giving, please keep us in mind so we can continue our good work into 2023 and beyond.  We wish you a new year full of many blessings and as much hope as you have shared with us.  If you would like to learn even more about what we do or how you can meet some of the children you have helped, please contact Tanya Weaver at tweaver@AFCAids.org. 

Our garden project, which not only provides food for our children at the orphanage, but directly benefits 22 by working and selling our produce. We are happy to report that we are transforming more than 150 lives through our garden and rice project. We stand out from the rest of the farmers in our community because we keep producing organic vegetables by using organic pesticides and organic farming which is healthy food for our clients.

Through appreciative inquiry exercises we've kept our garden doing better in production, we learn and inquire and seek advice from others to make sure we stand out. Through our garden, 120 children are able to attend school, fees for 5 high school girls are able to be paid and the kids at our orphanage are eating balanced diet food that is healthy for their body growth.

Thanks to the support that AFCA has shown to this project from the beginning.  Through our working together, the fruits of our effort are being felt in the community and we are still determined to make sure that this project stands on its own.

Everyone here at the American Foundation for Children with AIDS, and our partners in Africa, thank you for your continued support of this important project.  If you would like to learn even more about this project and others, please contact Tanya Weaver at tweaver@AFCAids.org. 

I would love to share the story of one of our kids in the high school.  We currently have four high school students in our program and we celebrate that they are on schedule to graduate in December!

Penny is one of the twelve kids that we are taking care of at our orphanage since 2012.  She lost her parents to HIV/AIDS.  Before we took her, she was living with her aging grandmother together with her three siblings.  By her being the first born, the family was depending on her, so she was washing people's clothing and working on a farm to get money so that she could take care of her family.  She would miss school frequently due to her responsibilities, her home life and also the lack of school fees.

After hearing all of her story, we decided to give her a change at our orphanage so that she would have an opportunity to learn well, eat well and grow to meet her full potential in life.  With love and support, she is thriving and making an effort in school to eradicate the poverty that exists in her family.  Penny acknowledges and is very thankful for seeing her through her journey of education.

Penny will be sitting for her final exams (Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education) in December and she is working so hard so that she will have a chance to join university so that she can pursue her dream of becoming a nurse.

On behalf of Restoring Hopes, I would like to say a BIG thank you to the American Foundation for Children with AIDS for your generous support of our kids.  You are not only helping them, but helping the entire community through their education.  Thanks for touching lives and sparking hope to our kids.

Everyone here at the American Foundation for Children with AIDS, and our partners in Africa, thank you for your continued support of this important project.  If you would like to learn even more about this project and others, please contact Tanya Weaver at tweaver@AFCAids.org.