Economic Growth Kenya Project #57607

Sustainable and key support for Kibagare Community

by St Martins School

Sustainable and key support for Kibagare Community

Project Report | Nov 14, 2024
Sustainable Key Support Report - November 2024

By Alfred Muheria Aswan | Project Liaison

Greetings from St Martins School and the Kibagare Community,

We continue to serve the community here with initiatives aimed at improving lives and ensuring economic sustainability. The community here still has challenges ranging from food shortages, climate change, economic instability, and inflation. While we make efforts to provide support to the many who need it most, there is still a need for more support and long-lasting solutions.

With school closed for the long break - November and December. A significant number of families with children may not be able to meet their food needs and this will significantly impact children and persons living with HIV and Aids. Many families are low-income earners relying on unstable and seasonal sources of income. Inflation is still high and the purchasing power of most households has significantly reduced making it hard to afford essential items, including food, clothing, and other basic needs.

Most of the women we support engage in small businesses which have been affected and have been forced to close down making it hard for most of them to support themselves and their families. This creates unemployment which is still high in this community.

Climate change and lack of land to cultivate due to an increase in population have made it impossible for the community here to grow their food. Crop failure and food shortages are a norm here due to the disruptions in food production, and lack of sufficient and consistent rains leading to low yields and high food prices.

To address the immediate needs, we have been able to provide food baskets, clothing, and bedding to 95 households. This is to help families especially those affected by HIV and AIDs to be able to adhere to their drugs. This helps to reduce cases of hospitalization which can lead to death if not addressed on time.

Due to the high cost of health care, most households cannot afford to pay for insurance. In the last three months, we have been able to pay annual health insurance for 6 households to enable them to access medical services at the local hospitals. Thanks to the guarantee of health insurance 4 individual members have undergone life-changing surgeries which would not have been possible if their insurance was not paid.

Food baskets for the most vulnerable families remain a priority and many still do not have access to food. We continue to provide for the most needy in the slums and surrounding slums.

Health insurance for community members especially those with underlying health conditions or families with young children is still a need and even with sensitization most families cannot afford to pay. there is a need to see how best to help this community overcome this challenge.

Support for local businesses, providing job training programs, and promoting small-scale entrepreneurship can go a long way in helping the community here sustain itself.

Initiatives to build resilience in education, skill building, and economic support will be crucial in preventing food crises and economic downtimes.

This community remains in need of ongoing support to navigate the challenges they face on a day-to-day basis. While providing food, clothing, bedding, and health insurance has a positive impact the community does need long-term solutions to address some of their challenges.

Thanks to you all for the support we have received and continue to receive to date. We are committed to continuing to work together for the well-being of this community.

Links:

Community Website

Permalink

Jul 9, 2024
Sustainable Key Support Report - July 2024

By Alfred M Aswani | Project Liaison

Greetings form St Martins School and the Kibagare community.

We are grateful for the far we have have come thanks to your continued support.It is through this support that we have been able to make good progress since our last update.

We have continued to support the community to enable them to make ends meets. We have observed that the community is still hugely affected with high employment rates. 75% of the youth, women and men are not employed due to limited opportunities and high inflation, forcing many families into poverty. Most of the people living in the slum are frrustrated and forced to engage in negative social behaviours like prostitution, drug abuse, crime and child labour. Children are the most affected because of the challenges faced by their parents and guardians.

Housing is still a huge problem here and it is made worse by the recent flooding tha has affected the better part of Nairobi and the country in general. The people living in the slum have been badly affected with their houses having leaking roofs and forced to look for makeshift places to sleep because their houses made of mud floors are wet.

The main business activities are small scale - seliing vegetables, used clothes and casual work. This is not enough to support the ever growing needs of their families and in some instances many are forced to forego some meals to survive.

Even with the many challenges, we have been able to conduct household visits and also sensitize the same households on eceonomic sustainability by encouraging them to jopin voluntary savings and loanings groups. 47 participated in this exerecise.
We have also been able to have the 100 mothers trained on sales and marketing, branding, business planning, finance and record keeping thanks to our partnership with a local NGO - Hand in Hand.
Due to the flooding that has affected businesses and houses in this community of Kibagare and the destabilization it has come with, through the social development office, a disaster management training and entrepreneurship was conducted in the community with focus on the changing business enviroment and how best to mitigate the challenges of small businesses.
92 households were assessed with 66.30% being severly vulnerable, 27.20% are modaerately vulnerable and 6.52% are sustainable.
47 members of the community were sensitized onthe importance of education. Schools reopened for the second term in the month of May and the parents were encouraged to support good performace for the students in school, provide a good and conducive learning enviroment for the children while at home. Parents of children who are slow learners were encouraged to foster good teache, students,and parents relationship to improve on learning outcomes.
294 Community memebers were sensitized on stigma and discrimination. there is still a. uge proble with stigam within the community here. this prevents most peopl from sharing thsir statuses to prveent the spread of HIV, AIDs and other opprtuinistic infections that affect this comnnunity here.

We have made good progress and we hope to continue doing more for this community here. Your continued support goes a long way and we are more than grateful and we look forward to sharing more of our achievements in our subsequent updates.

Thanks,

Alfred Aswan.

Permalink

Mar 1, 2024
Sustainable Key Support Report - February 2024

By Alfred M Aswani | Project Liaison

1 2 ›

About Project Reports

Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.

If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.