September-November 2015 Continuation of chicken project

This year we have taken on nine more children from six households and we are working hard to bring them up to the same level as those who have been with us for a number of years. We will be providing them with chickens and materials to build chicken houses over the next two months. At the moment we have raised enough for one family to get set up but need to raise enough for the five remaining. It costs approx £80 ($120) per family which gives us a grand total of £400 still to raise.

Any support with this would be very much appreciated and will make a big difference. Please specify when making the donation what you'd like it spent on and whether you'd like any updates on how your money is spent. We are happy to send photos.

Basic needs - ongoing

The children always need support for their basic needs which we try to provide for as much as possible. Food, clothes and toiletries are the main things you can help us. Every donation counts, however small!

Practical trainings and school fees for our teenagers - ongoing

As our group of children finish primary education, they need to be helped along their path to find employment in the future and learn important skills that will enable them to contribute something of value to their local community. For those who wish to continue their formal education, we hope to provide their school fees with your help through sponsorship. For the children who want practical trainings in woodwork, tailoring/dressmaking, catering etc, we are trying to give them the best training possible so they can share what they learn with others in the community and have the opportunity to either gain employment or set up their own small businesses in the future. Three of our teenagers have already been offered jobs after undertaking sponsored trainings.

Our land and building project - ongoing

Once we have raised enough funds, we plan to buy a piece of land to build a resource centre on to run life skills trainings, workshops, and provide a base for income generating activities that our young people can participate in. We are currently holding fundraising activities to raise enough for the land in the first instance and then we will focus on raising enough funds to develop a custom built centre. In total it will cost us approximately £5,000 for a good sized piece of land with access to power and water (depending on current exchange rate), and a further £5,000 for the building of the centre.

13/07/2013 Theatre therapy 10 day workshop - now completed!

We have been asked many times over the last year to provide counselling for the children as most of them have traumatic life experiences that they need to work through to become more positive in their lives. After thinking about this a lot, we heard about a fantastic Kenyan group that provides theatre therapy as a 10 day residential course. The children work through their life stories and present a play back to their grannies and grandpas on the last day. This has been reported as being completely life-changing for children and their guardians who have participated from other organisations, and we would absolutely love to be able to provide this for our children too. To cover all costs, we need to raise approximately £3000 ($4500) by the end of the month. This is a huge challenge for us but we feel passionate enough about it to try and make it happen with your help.

27/01/2013 Office furnishings - now completed!

We are very excited to have just started renting our first office to keep our files and hold meetings and workshops from. We now need to make sure it's furnished with tables, chairs and bookshelves in order for us to run things successfully from there. Total price for all the furniture we need has come to 54,000 Kenya shillings which is 617 USD / 390 GBP. We hope with your support that we can make it a really nice space for our group to come and learn with us.

2012-2013 Chicken project - now completed!

After discussions with our five most needy households, we decided to purchase the materials necessary to build chicken houses and gave them each four hens plus a cockerel. None of them had chickens already but they had the space available and were very enthusiastic about this project. All of the households were made up of elderly grandmothers caring for an orphaned grandchild and they were struggling day-to-day without the means to satisfy the child's (or even their own) nutrional requirements. We costed it at £58 per household to provide the materials and birds, the labour was free as they all had neighbours willing to help build the chicken houses. By the end of 2012, the first households with chickens started breeding them to share with the rest of our group and by March 2013, we were in a position to give each of our 36 households two hens and one cockerel.