self-help strength for saidia
What do the Bondeni Project, Rafiki Club and the Granny Club have in common? They are all projects of The Intrepid Foundation’s newest beneficiary organisation: the Saidia Children’s Home.
Saidia is based in Gilgil, north west of Nairobi in the Rift Valley of Kenya. Extended family networks are very strong in Kenya and orphaned children are usually taken in by their relatives. But a sad reality is that in this region many families have lost the entire parent generation to HIV/Aids.
With no social security net in Kenya, the Saidia team have been determined to create projects that will become independent of outside aid, relying instead on a mix of self-sufficiency and local support. It is precarious, but with our help at this crucial time they will become sustainable in the long term.
Saidia Children’s Home itself provides a safe place for orphans and abandoned children who have no relatives able to care for them, and for children who have been physically or sexually abused. There are currently 56 children living at the home. But Saidia is not ‘just’ a home – they also coordinate other complimentary projects:
- The Bondeni Project is a feeding and education program for disadvantaged children living with relatives at the nearby Bondeni estate.
- The Rafiki Club is a home-based feeding program mainly for mothers that are HIV positive, aiming to give nourishment, health care, counseling, and life skills to help extend the lives of the women and their children.
- The Granny Club is for grandmothers in the local community who due to AIDs, poverty and adversity are the sole carers of their grandchildren. It is a self-help project with meetings and training around vocational skills such as crop raising, goat rearing, literacy and helping set up small businesses making bags or beadwork. There are currently around 40 members of The Granny Club.
Your support of Saidia through The Intrepid Foundation, will be directed towards projects that will help Saidia become more self sufficient, including a dairy cow project and a farm to grow food crops and vegetables. We hope that within a relatively short time, our financial support will not be required and the Saidia children will grow into well educated and productive members of the community.
The Intrepid Foundation – travellers making a difference
Help support Saidia and other great organisations via the Intrepid Foundation and your donation could be matched* by Intrepid Travel!
* Donations will be matched by Intrepid Travel up to AU$5000 (or equivalent) per donor and a total of AU$400,000 each financial year.
I am thrilled that the Intrepid Foundation is supporting the Granny Club, in particular. These older women have lost their sons and daughters to HIV/AIDS and just when they should be sitting back enjoying their “golden years” they are called upon to raise their grandchildren. Now they’ll be supported through their own club, a place where they can learn how to read and write, reap the benefits of growing their own food, and starting small businesses to provide them with cash flow. Once again, well done Intrepid Foundation. I shall be writing about the Granny Club and visiting it sometime in the future.
Meanwhile, please visit my websites: One is for info about me; the other: http://www.TryshAshby-Rolls.com is dedicated to anyone in recovery and has a regular weekly blog post.