Aim

Although the focus of our activity is improved horticultural production and environmental management, SGG is often asked to implement social welfare projects. This is especially the case as we try to adopt a participatory approach to development – which means that beneficiary communities, not SGG, decide what actions should be the priority for their community. Thus in March 2007 when rural communities around Busia were being overwhelmed by the HIV pandemic and the rapid increase of HIV orphans, SGG agreed to implement this project. The initial aim was to support 959 orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs) and their 216 caregiving households. That support was originally planned to be a nutritious meal once a week which would cost £1/month/child for the 5 year period of 2008-2012. This feeding programme was to be accompanied by an income-generation project so that help for the OVCs can continue after external funding has ceased.

Young children wait patiently at New Hope Emaseno to see if they can join the feeding programme.

Summary

Thus, there have always been two major components within this project. One aspect is to provide supplementary food for OVCs living within the OWDF member communities. The second aim is to support the households within which these OVCs live by improving the economic capacity of such households. There have always been three basic difficulties with what we are doing. One is that the number of orphans we feed is only a small proportion of the children in need. There are officially 17,137 children needing special protection in Busia District, so this project is only a minor contribution to the overall solution. A second problem is that SGG has never received sufficient funds to support these orphans even at a rate of £1/month. Thus, in 2008 it proved necessary to reduce the number of orphans within this scheme to 500 rather than the 959 originally intended. A third difficulty is that the project was originally focused on orphans when there are many children in West Kenya who are hungry and worse off than those who benefit from extra food. These last two problems mean that since 2009 SGG has developed this project so that all of the household can benefit from investment (usually through table-banking schemes mentioned in Project 4) and so that there is an income-generation scheme as part of the Project.

When SGG visit Siritanyi to provide food for some 50 orphans, over 120 children arrive in search of hope and a good meal.

Despite many difficulties this project has been a success. We have been using UNICEF child growth charts which establish that even with just one supplementary meal a week these children are gradually changing from being undersized & underweight to a more normal healthy condition for their age. SGG will continue supporting these orphans in the future. However, we are now spending more of our resources on showing households with HIV orphans how to increase the overall income of the household rather than just providing food aid for one of the family.

A child smiles during the special meal prepared by Bukhayo West Widows.