Sustainable Food Project for Children in Kenya

I am delighted to give you yet another report on how our work together is bringing about great admirable impact into the lives of women, children and families that have been infected/affected by HIV/AIDs. 

To know how our program is changing lives, I have visit the families of the women working on the sisal and garden projects and examine if really we are positively changing their lives, Yesterday i had a privilege to visit on of the women working on sisal project, I had a great interview with her, and I could not hide my smiling face anymore. 

I would love to share with you about the family of Connie who is working on the sisal project. Connie who has been a widow for 10 years has been living with HIV and AIDS for 12 years. Her husband died 10 years ago leaving her with four kids to raise.  With no job to depend on, she has a devastating life story for her children.  Once in her life she decided to turn her life to prostitution so that she could raise her children. Late at night she could leave her children sleeping to go for her "job" in town and would return very early in the morning (4 AM) so that her children couldn't get to know where she went. This was her life for 4 years when she decided to turn her life around, not knowing how many men she had infected with AIDS.  This did not put food on her table to feed her children. She faced yet another trials in her live as hopelessness and poverty took a central position in her life.  Connie would send her children to her relatives for a few days so she could finds ways to be self-sufficient, as she could go some days without food to eat and soap to clean her cloths.  

Connie joined our sisal project and she is proud that her life has changed for good, and surely with what i saw i truly could say that there is a sense of no more poverty and hopelessness as before for her. She has all her children under her care, they are no longer living with her relatives because she can comfortably provide food, soap to wash her family clothes, fees to educate her kids and she is living a good life within the community . What makes me happy is that the source of her income does not come from prostitution, but from a decent work. Surely there is a sense in which the sisal project has brought about a positive change in Connie's family, a family that once could not support her self is now able to comfortably support herself.  There is a sense in which dignity and hope is restored back to her life. There is a sense in which she is now self-sufficient and sustainable.  There is a sense in which AFCA needs to be proud because five lives are positively impacted.  

Apart from the daily wage she gets from sisal project, she is has a small garden and she copied how we did prepare the garden beds to produce.  Connie did exactly the same and I was extremely happy to see that she can grow vegetables of her own to help with the cost of her buying the veggies for her kids. She used her income from the sisal to buy enough seeds for her 3 garden beds.  I was thrilled more than ever before for her.  I love the fact that she is decent with everything around her, her house, compound and kids.

The team here at the American Foundation for Children with AIDS thanks you for supporting this project and the work we do for the children in Africa.  As you start to make decisions regarding your end of year giving, please keep us in mind so we can continue our good work into 2020 and beyond.  We wish you a new year full of many blessings and as much hope as you have shared with us.  If you would like to learn even more about what we do or how you can meet some of the children you have helped, please contact Tanya Weaver at tweaver@AFCAids.org.