Sustainable Food Project for Children in Kenya

I hope that this report again finds you well.  I would love to share more specifically on the sisal project, about the women working at the sisal project 3 days a week to earn a living.  I’m attaching photos so you can see the women working (dicorticating, washing the sisal for drying, picking the sisal leaves for processing, removing sisal wastes to the compost bin for decomposing, maintaining the decorticator with the water during the processing time and removing the dried sisal fibre)

Mitzi has 4 children, Lynn has 3 children, Joanne has 2 children and Margie has 6 children.  They are all HIV+ and they love the work they are doing here so that they can take care of themselves and their families.  I would love to report that at this moment we have all women working at the project.  This means that the project is now 100% women working in it.  They are dedicated women who are happy with this work.

I visited Mitzi to assess if the project is really helping them to get out of poverty, and this is was my finding ..

1. Her 4 kids are attending school regularly.

2. She is raising 5 chickens that she was able to buy with her salary from the sisal project.

3. Her house is neat with good chairs and basics of the house.

4. The kids do not attend hospital frequently.

5. The kids do not look malnourished.

6. She has her daily meals with her family.

7. She wears good clothes and is very healthy.

8. Kids have good clean clothes to put on meaning she can be able to buy soap.

9. Kids are doing well in class work.

I was so pleased and happy that the project is helping out the women get out of the cycle of poverty, and that there is no hunger in families affected or infected with HIV/Aids working in the project. I am happy to report that the effects/fruits of this project is great are so encouraging to be part of since it has created jobs for positive mothers in our community.

I can't stress more about how the sisal is helping our women, and I want to say A BIG THANK YOU to AFCA for helping us out in seeing that this project becomes sustainable to continue helping out the families. We appreciate the trainings and the financial support AFCA has invested in this project.

Everyone here at the American Foundation for Children with AIDS, and our partners in Africa. thank you for your continued support of this important project.  If you would like to learn even more about this project and others, please contact Tanya Weaver at tweaver@AFCAids.org.