1. Why an orphanage in Stella?
Why an orphanage in Stella?
Sadly because there is an enormous need of orphanages in Nyanza region. The number of orphans is very high and poverty makes it very difficult for their relatives, aunts and uncles, or grandparents, to care for them. Still, most families are hosting orphans at home. Being a burden for their host families, the children often need to work hard as a sign of thankfulness for the received care. When asking people about the number of children they have, the answer is mostly “5 children of my own, then 3 orphans from my brother, and I also take care of my parents”.
HIV/AIDS in Nyanza province
One of the main reasons for the growing number of orphans is the high rate of HIV/AIDS in this region. Some traditional customs, as the inheritance of women by the brother of the diseased, were originally created to assure social and financial support and care for the widow. In this context, they became dangerous games, taking away all family members in working age one by one. Soon, grandparents stay behind with their 10 to 20 grandchildren. How can grandparents ensure a living and education for their grandchildren, when they become too old to work on the field themselves?
Nyanza province is Kenya’s poorest province with an urban poverty rate of 63 per cent and a rural poverty rate of 65 per cent (according to inequality reports by Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) and the Society for International Development (SID)). Poor education standards and high infant mortality rates are the biggest indicators of the poverty situation. For instance, Nyanza reports 206 deaths per 1000 live births before their fifth birthday.
Nyanza also has one of the highest HIV/AIDS prevalence in the country at 15.1 per cent, compared to the 7 percent prevalence rate for Kenya. Although the decrease in prevalence from 15 percent in the mid-1990s looks encouraging, this picture does not show an improvement, but rather an increase in HIV/AIDS orphans. Indeed, Kenya’s HIV/Aids epidemic has entered a “death phase” in which more people are dying of Aids-related complications than are getting infected, wherefore the total percentage decreases. The result is a growing number of orphans. Estimates indicate that about 65,000 adult Kenyans and 25,000 children become infected with HIV every year, while a total of 150,000 die of the disease annually (according to a copy of the draft Kenya National HIV/Aids strategic Plan 2005/6-2009/10). This is twice the number of those who died in 1998.
The most urgent is an orphanage
As a conclusion, a personal experience can illustrate the urgent need for new orphanages. During a Participatory Rural Appraisal exercise in a village in Migori district, the women were asked about which type of organisation would be necessary in this village. We were thereby thinking about NGOs, microfinance institutions, agricultural extension, etc. But the women answered none of the previous, but said the most important would be an orphanage. This village is located about 8km from “Happy Home”.
Participatory Activities
The birth of “Happy Home” Orphanage
In Stellah Village, in front of the fuel station, a small hospital had been created about 15 years ago by the Sagwa family. This hospital had good times, but lately the number of patients became very low and the hospital began having problems for maintaining staff and available medicine. As the need for this hospital decreased, the Sagwa family was planning to change its purpose, into maybe an orphanage, as they had been hosting and educating a number of them.
In April-May 2006 they started hosting me, Isabelle Vandeplas. I am a young Belgian women working with farmers on the development of agricultural projects in the area. I had worked as a volunteer for the World Food Programme (WFP) in Benin, on a project of orphan feeding. I had visited many orphanages and had been touched by the efforts of normal people to raise, feed and educate up to 60 of these children on their own salary. When leaving the WFP, I had saved some money from my travel allowances, planning to invest it later for orphans.
Adding to this, a neighbour and good friend of the family, Tom Jeserem, heard about this project and explained he had been manager of an orphanage some years ago. The team grew and allowed us to start seriously thinking about changing the hospital into an orphanage.