East Africa

We continued our help to Kenya during the first part of the year. We helped provide food for around 15,000 people together with EDFRI our partners in Kenya. A harvest was expected in March and in fact the first fruits of beans had been already harvested around Christmas. Things were looking good, but then just before the maize harvest torrential rain destroyed a great deal of the yield.

Once more the situation was desperate. We were able to help build a dam in the Mbeeri area – about 200km north of Nairobi – which is a great blessing. Women from this area had to walk 15km one way, to collect water from a lake near a power station. That is thankfully history. The other sand dams that were built were a great help but unfortunately there are not enough. People heard that “our” communities had water and walked, sometimes a long way, to take water. The sand dam reservoirs had to provide for many more people than planned. We hope to continue build more  dams.

A fishing cooperative has been launched in Turkana. They have three boats at the moment and 50 people are dependent upon each boat. This project is sustainable and helps the people to generate their own income and feed their families. The members of the cooperative have come out of a refugee camp that has been supported by EDFRI for a couple of years. Turkana is the most impoverished area of Kenya.

Christmas activity

We had a Christmas drive to gather funds and called it FULL OF LIFE. We had some bags made and offered them to people for 30 Euros. The cost to make them was around 2 Euros. We said that we would give them the bag and give the contents to a child in Nepal, India, Kenya, Congo or Ukraine. Many people didn’t actually want the bags! But they generously gave funds for the contents. We haven’t got the reports in yet with all the photos etc., but we were able to send money to all of the places mentioned about. We are supporting 14 orphan children in Nepal. They have got new school bags with the necessary school equipment. They also got new shoes, school uniform, warm winter jackets and quilts for their beds. Four children got beds! Many others were given similar things.

In India, we support a children’s home and there too all the 120 children got new shoes, but besides that, AIDS orphans were helped with clothes and school things. 200 children in Kenya got new shoes. 200 children in Congo got a new school uniform. When you think that they hardly have anything else to wear, this is quite something. They wanted the children to know that the uniforms came from us, so they had HOPE (our organization) printed on the t-shirt. Unfortunately there was a mishap and they forgot the letter “E”. HOP – considering that in French, you don’t pronounce the “H”, we have been relegated to being “OP”! In the Ukraine 200 families were provided with food parcels.

We were so pleased that we reached our goal and were able to bless so many people!