Relieving Kenya's urban poverty

Kibera, the second largest slum in East Africa, on the outskirts of Nairobi, is home to over 1 million people.  There is no electricity supply, no mains water, drainage or services of any kind.  It is estimated that there are more than 50,000 orphans, many of them due to HIV/Aids.

Feed The Children's work in Kenya includes:

Emergency aid - support in Kenya's drought

People who depend on annual rains for their livelihood are in desperate straits when rain is late, or doesn't fall at all.

In the spring of 2006, rain had not fallen for months in the northern Kenya.  An area that should have been green had turned to desert.  The semi-nomadic population had lost around 70% of livestock, and faced starvation.

Feed The Children provided food, water and other essentials to the 10,000 people living around Kargi, a remote village in northern Kenya.

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Abandoned babies

A tragic number of Kibera's babies is left in hospitals, police stations and even on rubbish dumps.  Feed The Children's Abandoned Baby Centre (ABC) cares for around 65 babies at a time; on arrival, they are typically undersized, malnourished and ill.  After a few weeks of good food and appropriate medical care, however, most of the babies make a full return to health.

Where possible, the babies will return to their parents or extended families, with support from Feed The Children.  Others are fostered within the community, or occasionally, may be adopted overseas.  

Children with special needs usually progress to the Dagoretti Children's Centre, on the same site.

Sadly, some babies arrive at ABC too late, and cannot recover - for them, the hospice facility at least offers them loving care for the whole of their short lives.

Children with disabilities

Dagoretti Children's Centre is a residential school, providing for around 45 children with special needs.  At Dagoretti, children can receive treatments such as speech therapy or physiotherapy, and any mobility aids they require, such as wheelchairs or prosthetic limbs.

Support to schools

The Urban Feeding Programme, in conjunction with the United Nations World Food Programme, supports 99 schools in Kibera, providing a mid-day meal for around 90,000 children.  For many of the children, this will be the only meal of the day.

Alongside providing essential food, our de-worming programme helps children get maximum nutrition from their diet.  It costs just 40p to keep a child free from worms for a year.