Give Hope to Kisumu's Underprivileged Children

Dear Donor, 

Thank you so much for your continued support to our COVID Relief Project!

Since our last update, we have reached even more families through our relief work, this time, addressing the challenges many communtiies are facing as a result of rising food prices all across Kenya. In this report, we also share an update from our Christmas Drive in December 2021, our meals program and a couple of updates from our Girls Empowerment and Climate Action projects.

COVID Relief Update – January

Joshua, a beneficiary of the food packs said, “This program has been empowering those that have been a part of it. Not having food puts many of my community members at a disadvantage because children can’t learn with an empty stomach and we can’t go on about our day without food either.”

Like Joshua and his family, 1,340 families have received food packs that have made a big difference in their day to day lives. Additionally through this program, 407 at-risk teenage girls have each received a sanitary kit and a menstrual health & hygiene talk. 3,346 students have also received an education pack with textbooks relevant to their respective classes, an exercise book and stationery for revision.

With rising inflation and food prices, many families continue to struggle in this time. Your donation can support a family of five people for two weeks. Will you become a monthly donor?

Annual Christmas Drive

Santa made a quick stop at RKF to be a part of our Annual Christmas Drive celebrations and we couldn’t be happier!! Santa came to spread the Christmas cheer with so many children and their families, especially those who have had a rather challenging year.

He brought some gifts and toys and showed off his excellent balloon twisting skills (who knew Santa could make balloon animals?!). There was also music, cake and lots and lots of food… enough to take the families through to the start of 2022!

We asked Japeth, one of the beneficiaries of the Food Packs about how last year’s Christmas was different from 2020’s.

He said, “it was very different because my family wasn’t a part of the COVID Relief program back then. I had also lost my job and making an income became difficult. Sometimes we slept without eating food.”

Japeth started receiving food packs since his child joined one of the schools where the program was introduced. “I am thankful to the Foundation for supporting my family. This Christmas isn’t easy either but it’s better than the last one. I am even taking my children and wife to a park to spend time together. We are happy!”

Continuation of Meals Program

What could be better than a nutritious cup of uji (porridge) to start off the morning and conquer through classes until lunch! With the resumption of our Meals Program, students in some communities are now receiving breakfast (uji) and lunch (rice and green grams/beans) everyday while they are in school.

Every day more than 66 million children go to school hungry. According to the World Bank, school feeding programs are targeted social safety nets that provide both educational and health benefits to the most vulnerable children, thereby increasing enrollment rates, reducing absenteeism, and improving food security at the household level.

RKF’s Meals Program aims to achieve this by ensuring students have access to two on-site school meals daily: a hot cup of porridge for a mid-morning snack and a hot plate of lunch. Our team also works with vulnerable families to provide them with food packs (ration kits) to provide food security at home. 

International Women's Day

Happy International Women’s Day!!

Team RKF is honouring all the women around the world who have raised their voices for educating our girls to create a sustainable tomorrow. This quote by Michelle Obama says everything we believe:

“Investing in girls' education is the very best thing we can do, not just for our daughters and granddaughters, but for their families, their communities, and their countries.”

All through March 2022, RKF will be working with girls and women in Kisumu County to educate them on the importance of menstrual health and hygiene, body positivity and the importance of continuing on their education journey. We will also be providing girls with Sanitary Kits that will help girls in rural Kisumu stay in school when they are menstruating.

You can support our work by sharing this message or making a donation of KES 5,500 or US$50 to support five girls in the month of March.

Donate online by clicking here: I will support 5 girls this year

Carrot Harvest

3kg of carrots in 90 days.

We are so thrilled to share this update. We had planted carrot seeds in a small part of our vegetable patch in late September 2021. Recently, we were able to harvest 3kg of this beautiful vegetable. Why are we sharing this?

If we can achieve this in such a small space, imagine what we can achieve when we convert unused school land into beautiful shambas and community gardens. Would you like to support this project? Find out more about our Climate Action Project here: Environment in Education: Planting 100,000 trees

GlobalGiving Badges

Team RKF has been recognized by GlobalGiving yet again and we have received all six badges for 2022. We are grateful for your continued support and we hope to continue doing this work as long as it is needed.

Links:

• Sign up to our Monthly Newsletter!
• Become a Patron: make a monthly donation
• An Update from our Climate Action Project

COVID Relief Update - October

We are getting close to 200,000 MEALS from our COVID Relief efforts. This is on top of the 260,000 meals we had already served as a part of the School Meals Program before the pandemic. And even as we reflect on what getting closer to the milestone of half a million meals means, we can’t help but feel a deep sense of AWE at the support you have offered us since we started this work in 2016.

In the month of October, an additional 16,430 meals were served through 85 new food packs to families in different communities within Kisumu County. In total, 4,537 families (12,360 beneficiaries) have so far received 192,369 meals since the start of our relief program! As the new cases of COVID-19 in Kenya are lower than the 2% positivity rate and with the easing of restrictions, our team has now started re-introducing on-site school meals. We hope to share an update on this in the coming months.

3,343 students have benefited from education packs and 351 Sanitary kits (1,820 reusable pads) have been distributed to at-risk teenage girls.

ImpactStory

Serfina is a parent who has been a continuous recipient of the COVID Relief Food Packs.  

She is a single mother who like many other people lost her job due to the pandemic. She says, "Now I do things (small jobs) here and there to get a wage. This program has been supporting me and my family. My children now don't have to compromise, it gives me satisfaction to know that they are eating well."

The savings Serfina makes from the packs helps her buy extra vegetables to add in the food and sometimes even pay rent 2 months in advance."

(Translated from Kiswahili)

An Update from Our Environment Project

"If we want children to flourish, to become truly empowered, then let us allow them to love the earth before we ask them to save it.“ – David Sobel

With our first official environment workshop, we tried to do just that! During the 3 hours that the students were in the mini botanical garden, we had a discussion where everyone was a part of the conversation about our earth and different ways in which we can show it some love. Many young students chimed in with: “plant trees”, “throw garbage in the dustbin”, “don’t pollute the water” among other suggestions.

Read more about this project here: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/environment-in-education-planting-100-000-trees/reports/?subid=179776

Giving Tuesday 2021

#GivingTuesday is only 19 days away! This year, GivingTuesday will be on 30^th November 2021.

We need your help to reach our goal of raising $10,000 in support of the various communities we serve in Kisumu County—and with GlobalGiving’s incentive fund, the more you give, the larger share The Rahul Kotak Foundation (RKF) receives out of the $1 million USD in bonus funds available! 

If we reach our goal this year, RKF will be able to reach nearly 4,000 students with a daily school meals program and build 2 brand new libraries... but we can’t do it without you. 

Mark your calendars to #MoveAMillion: it’s almost time to help RKF!

Links:

• Become a Patron: Make a Recurring Donation
• Read Our Latest Reports from our Girls Project
• Read Our Latest Reports from our Environment Project