KENYANS LIFTING EACH OTHER UP

There is no magic bullet that will wipe out global poverty. However there is a way to help the people themselves overcome poverty. Not by giving them massive handouts of food but by giving them the tools and education to use them.

To accomplish our goal we must address ten areas that contribute to poverty.

HEALTH: There are grandmothers raising up to ten or even fifteen grand children who have been orphaned by AIDS. Malaria is staggering in Kenya, a mother taking care of sick children cannot work and people stricken with malaria cannot work the fields and many die from the lack of being able to pay for medication. A five dollar bed net which most cannot afford would prevent eighty percent of the cases of malaria. Typhoid is another prevalent disease in Kenya that can be prevented by washing your hands and vegetables before preparing them. However you need a good water supply to do this. People also eat from the same bowl which spreads the disease.

SANITATION: In the slums there are open sewers that run next to water supplies. People use pit latrines when available but water is so scarce that many do not wash their hands after using the latrine and before preparing the meals for fear that there will not be enough water to drink.

SAFE DRINKING WATER: Most villages and slums do not have reliable water supplies and those that do still must boil the water to kill parasites. Springs need to be developed and wells drilled.

SAFE HOUSING: Most villages have mud huts with thatched roof that leak in the rainy season and the slums are tin shacks because the government will not allow them to build permanent houses. Most people do not have electricity they cook on charcoal stoves and eat out of one pot. There is no place to bathe and no toilet facilities.

POWER: There is no light at night for the children to do school work by or to tend sick individuals by. Some cannot even afford candles. There is no refrigeration, none of the things we take for granted.

TRANSPORTATION: Most of the people in the villages and slums cannot even afford a bicycle. A grandmother in one village had to carry her ten year old grandson ten kilometers to a clinic only to find out that the doctor only came on Tuesday and Thursday so she carried him back home and then returned with him the next day. Some have to carry their loved ones a longer distance using wheel borrows or other devices. If the farmers have extra produce that is beyond their consumption needs they can't get it to market.

COMMUNICATION: There are no phones in the slum or villages to report a need for medical need or a disaster or notifying of a relatives death. A simple cell phone paid for by the village would help. A call could be placed to find out if medical facilities were open in an emergency.

ARABLE LAND: And simple hand equipment to work it along with fertilizer for a first crop would go a long way toward sustainable farming. The farmers used to use fertilizer but now it cost $500 a ton twice the world average. The farmers need to also be taught which crops to plant to put nitrogen back in the soil and new agriculture methods.

EDUCATION: Kenya has a literacy rate of eighty five percent but they lack the knowledge of new farming techniques and new crops and irrigation methods. Most of the orphans don't have the money to pay school fees and for uniforms so they will not get an education. These children are the future we must help them.

PRODUCTS TO SELL: Most of the people in the villages and the slums have no way to produce a product for sale. Farm-Africa is working with villagers giving them a couple of goats and teaching them how to care for them with amazing results.