Programs

• Education and Empowerment Program - EEP
• Women Employment and Enterprise Program – WEEP
• Youth Employment and Empowerment Program -YEEP
• Renewable Energy Program - REP
• Micro-credit program

This is an initiative under KSHI, which was formed to look into cases of education in the community. The KSHI steering committee appointed a retired teacher (John Juma Toko), and Cleophas Okota Jonyo, a responsible father of 6 children to manage this department. Their task is to do a survey and identify children who genuinely need to be supported to pursue education in Kanyakoo community and report it to the KSHI steering committee that tries to find solutions with the parents.

From their first survey they have found the following factors as major contributors to poor education in the area:

1. Death of parents
2. Lack of school fees
3. Child labor
4. Early pregnancy
5. Early marriage
6. Different Traditions
7. Poverty

1. Establish a Family Based Orphan Support Program (FBOSP).
2. Support the poor families in sharing the school expenses.
3. Create awareness on the negative effects of child labor through community trainings.
4. Construct an Infant Day Care Center (IDCC) to enable the young mothers to continue with education. And create awareness on the preventive measures (family planning for both male and female) and good motherhood through trainings.
5. Create awareness on the effects of early marriage through community trainings in the community.
6. Change the attitude of the community through trainings not to cling on traditions that put more favor on boys than girls.
7. Partner with WEEP in offering micro credit to enable families start small business to support their children in school.

Since EEP was established they have been able to do the following: Did a survey on the education status in the community. Distributed education materials (donated by Italian friends) to pupils who come from poor families in the community. Paid full year secondary school fees (11,000 Ksh) and lunch program (2,800 Ksh) to Johanes Ngoke who dropped out of school three years ago due to lack of school fees. Paid 8000 kenya shillings to Bob Onyango sponsored by Danish friends .

28 of these children go to Raliew Primary School. This school has 660 pupils and 6 teachers that are employed by the government. However the performance in this school is better because there are some trained teachers who help in teaching and are paid by the parents. 5 children are in Kandhere Primary School. 2 children are in Kandaria Primary School. No children are in Aduoyo Primary School, due to lack of adequate school facilities. The ratio of Kanyakoo children who complete school has been generally 1 girl to 3 boys. This is attributed to the very traditional belief among some African society that girl-child education is a waste of resources, as they would get married off.

As much as the people can now boast of Free Primary Education, and that the parents are relieved of paying school fees in the primary schools, buying of text and exercise books, the learning situation is still not any better:

• In Aduoyo Primary School, pupils are still learning under the trees.
• One textbook is shared among 3-5 children.
• The schools are understaffed with teachers. One teacher teaches up to 80 pupils in a class.
• The parents have to build and maintain the school by themselves.
• The parents have to buy the school uniforms.
• No food program in the primary schools.

Below are the school costs in the schools in Kanyakoo.

This is an initiative under KSHI of 30 women who have come together in a solidarity group in order to tackle poverty.

These women range from ages of 25 to 60 years old. They are all married, 6 are widows and each of them has 4 to 10 children of their own. Some of them are either first, second or even third wives, because the luo culture permits a man to have more than one wife. In this situation they take care also of the children of the co-wives. Only few of them finished the primary school, and most of them are not exposed to the town life. So they speak only Luo and a bit of Kiswahili language. Only few can communicate in English.

Living in the rural area without electricity, clean water, cooking gas, own transport, their day has to start early with walking to collect water from the lake for washing, cooking and drinking, collect firewood for cooking, tend the children, house, animals and the farm. Since the husbands’ earnings are not enough to sustain a big family, these women have to do some small-scale businesses to supplement. Like selling what they produce in the farm or fish bought from the lake in evening market. Still 1 or 2 of them do tailoring beside the road and some sell what they cook like samosas.

Some of them produce at home illicit alcohol because they can have a good earning from it when the police does not arrest them. Alcoholism is a social problem in this village and has brought negative consequences such as violence and irresponsibility in the families.

Activities

Revolving Funds- They meet together every week on Thursdays to collect 40 Ksh saved in the week from every member. Each 10 Ksh are added to the group account, the rest 30 Ksh from each member is given to a member in turns. This kind of saving which they call MERRY-GO-ROUND, give them an opportunity to have a modest amount of money (30 Ksh x 30 women = 900 Ksh) to boost their businesses or to pay their daily expenses.

From July 2004 KSHI started organizing trainings and formations for this group of women on:

• Team building
• Group dynamics
• Gender issues
• Wealth ranking

All this is to prepare them for Micro Credit Program that will offer:

• Trainings on loan management
• Trainings on loan repayment
• Business skills
• Small loans,

to small groups of women\men or individuals, who are not eligible for a bank loan because of their poor economic condition, and:

• Want to start up a business
• Or have emergency need for hospital services or school fees.

Achievements of revolving funds

During the year 2005 the women saved 10,200 in a group of 17 people. They decided to divide the amount to start their own business. Each member got 500 shillings. Members agreed upon the return of the money got to be within a period of six months, which is 30th June 2006. The 30 shillings contributed in the merry go round is always given to each member in turns. Women use this amount for domestic development whereby they mostly buy household utensils. Most of the members started some small-scale business eg.selling maize, beans, cooking samosa and simsim, selling vegetables and sweet potatoes.
The profit got from the business differs depending with the season and product sold. This year the women have increased their savings from 10 shillings to 20 per week. At the end of the year 2006 they want to invest their savings into their own income generating initiative.The women can now offer themselves loans of up to 300 Kenya shillings, which they return with an interest of 10 percent.

Challenges

Sports

Dancing and singing

Weaving

Doll making

This is an initiative under KSHI that brings together a group of youths to develop themselves educationally, socially and economically in the village.

Achievements

Youths have played several friendly matches (football, netball, volleyball) with teams within and neighboring Asembo bay and Kokise village. They have organized inter villages tournament. They participated in a tournament organized by Youth Economic Skills and Health Center in Asembo (YESHICA) to mark the World Aids Day last year. The youths through networking with YESHICA and Center for Disease Control (CDC) organized AIDS awareness day in the village. Kenya Rural Enterprise Program (K-REP) representative Elizabeth Mukami visited the youths last year October, and initiated a training program on how to start small-scale business, Youths Savings and Loan Program. They have so far conducted 3 sessions of trainings.KSHI has also provided some sports facilities that can socially bring them together. Some of the youths participate in the Farm project, but KSHI wants to give them a farm to manage by themselves. Until now KSHI has been able to give to only one of the youths the opportunity to go to the Raliew secondary school paying his full year fees (11,000 Ksh) and the lunch program (2,800 Ksh).

Challenges A low education standard drags the training sessions because they have to be conducted in the local language. The girls have not been actively involved in the youth program. However efforts are being made to get them fully on board. Until now KSHI has been able to give to one of the youths the opportunity to go to the Raliew secondary school paying his full year fees (11,000 Ksh) and the lunch program (2,800 Ksh).

The plight of the girl-child

Because of poverty many girls find themselves in some of the following situations:

• School drop out
• Early marriage
• Early pregnancy
• Child labor
• Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs)

School drop-out: Many girls drop out of school more so in primary because the poor families cannot provide school facilities to all the children, but anyway the parents prefer taking the sons to school as opposed to the daughters. This is attributed to the assumption among some African societies that girl education is a waste of resources, as they would get married off.

Early marriage: Some families marry off their daughters at an early age because of poverty. In Luo culture the marrying of a daughter means the parents can receive cows or money as a bride price, and however this relieves them from the burden of taking care of the daughter. Child labor: girls are used to carry out domestic works in the family. These works ranges from, collecting firewood, water from the lake, cooking, taking care of their younger brothers and sisters, to tending the animals and the farm. Sometimes the girls are sent to work away as house helps (maids), or sent to sell in the market to earn some income to the family. Early pregnancy: Because of poverty and lack of power to negotiate, the girls are easily lured into sex in search of basic needs. They also indulge in unprotected sex due to lack of awareness resulting to unwanted pregnancy and HIV. Further more the issue of using a condom, which has to be negotiated between the boy and the girl never happens. In nearly all the cases that have occurred the men never accept to take responsibility so the burden of bringing up the child is on the girl-child that must drop out of school to find means of survival.

STIs: due to unprotected sex many people have acquired or risk acquiring sexually transmitted infections like, syphilis, gonorrhea, HIV. Because of poverty they have no means to buy proper medicines, and many die.

In Kanyakoo community many girls have died of HIV-AIDS.

Many of them became pregnant or were affected by the disease when they were sent away in town to work. In one case a Kanyakoo girl died of HIV-AIDS leaving 4 children to the grandmother. In another case a Kanyakoo girl died with her two children of HIV-AIDS. For these reasons KSHI is working towards preventive measures in the community and finding ways to empower the young girls. The Preventive measures to be undertaken by KSHI are to: create awareness in the community through Trainings on STIs, Family Planning Methods, Good Parenthood and the effects of child-labor alleviate poverty through Micro Credit Program support the girls to go school finding sponsors. KSHI has started networking with: Network of Adolescents and Youths in Africa (NAYA) who has provided some write ups on STIs, Abidha dispensary, in provision of free condoms to the youths. For the young mothers with children KSHI wants to: construct an Infant Day Care Center (IDCC) to enable the young mothers to continue with primary and secondary education or trainings, give an opportunity of training and working in the Tailoring Unit.

Kanyakoo Self Help Initiative (KSHI) sees the need for the change of attitude towards the environment and work also to protect the precious resources Mother Earth provides for us: a time when the spectacular sight of the African indigenous and exotic trees, bushes and shrubs evoke a sense of wonder and awe rather than provoking a desire for exploitation.
KSHI calls for reverence for all life forms so that our actions are justified only if and when they are beneficial to all life forms both today and in the future. The challenge is, therefore, to improve the standards of living without destroying the environment. However, in a world driven by an insatiable demand for technological progress, this challenge may seem hard to achieve.
Even so, overcoming the challenge is not at all impossible. With a change of attitude towards the resources available, in the environment so that we use them sparingly, and with a willingness to sustain these resources by respecting the natural law of `RENEWABILITY`, we could recreate an environment that would effectively serve our purpose both today and in the future.

KSHI is glad to have received a solar kitchen that was kindly donated to us by TATAVASCO -ITALY. We have assembled it and women have been cooking with it in turns.
In the last KSHI committee meeting held on 22nd October 2005, we discussed what would be away forward in making the solar kitchen project have a major impact in improving the environment and the lives of the people in this village. The discussion revolved around the following.

• How do we make it possible for each family to have their own solar kitchen since one cannot serve adequately the big population? Or rather how do we increase the number of the solar kitchen to be able to cater for the wider population?
• How can we start our own production of the solar kitchen, using the locally available materials? To be able to spread the idea to the neighboring villages and beyond.
• How do we explore other energy means like wind and waterpower?

Our contact

P.O. BOX. Asembo Bay, code: 40619,Kenya
Tel. +254-733-809850, +254-720-226560, +254-721-230393
E-mail Kanyakoo_asembo@yahoo.com
Account name Kanyakoo Self Help Group
Account number 0110014152400, Swift code: kcookena
Bank Co-operative Bank of Kenya, Kisumu Kenya.
Swift code kcookena