Partners in Kenya

Click on a partner below to find out more about their work improving the lives of children affected by HIV & AIDS in Kenya.

Ace Africa - Kenya

Based in Siaya County near the Ugandan border, where high HIV prevalence means more than 1 in 5 children have lost a parent, Ace Africa's mission is to improve the lives of children and their communities through cost-effective programmes.

Ace Africa’s current 3 year (2022 - 2025) Strategic Project aims to increase access to health services for 25,000 children and family members living in rurally isolated communities, and strengthen 1,400 marginalised families’ ability to generate a livelihood and survive economic shocks enabling them to provide for the 4,200 children in their care. Ace Africa will also work with local government, agencies and communities to protect and safeguard the rights of 45,000 children through establishment and strengthening of community-based child protection systems and increased access to justice for adolescents and children, increasing the number of children enrolled in school and providing a referral and protection network so that children can grow and flourish.

Egmont & Ace Africa - Kenya
Started working together in 2007 93,467 people helped 9 projects funded Grant level - Strategic
Impact Areas

Child Opportunity Trust

In Kenya, there are 690,000 children who have lost at least one of their parents to the AIDS epidemic. The prospects and opportunities available to these children are often limited due to the loss of the bread winner in the household. Secondary education is not free in Kenya and there are many associated costs beyond the school fees such as uniforms and books; only 53% of children are able to attend. For those children that have lost one or both of their parents to HIV & AIDS, it is particularly difficult to afford the cost of secondary school.

Child Opportunity Trust is located on the western side of Kenya, near Lake Victoria. The have been supported by Egmont to help 405 orphaned and vulnerable children who have been affected or infected by HIV to stay in school. Child Opportunity Trust have formed 10 support groups, each made up of 25 mothers and 40 children. These support groups meet bi-weekly to discuss parenting skills, how to look after HIV+ children and to make sure that all of the children are safe and attending school. Through these groups, Child Opportunity Trust distribute educational packs containing school supplies, which many of the mothers are unable to afford. The Trust are also seeking to improve the incomes of 275 members of the support groups by providing capital, so that the groups can set up joint business such as bakeries and poultry farms with the aim of increasing their incomes by 70% by the end of the project.

Egmont & Child Opportunity Trust
Started working together in 2021 1,868 people helped 3 projects funded Grant level - Core grant
Impact Areas

Community Fight Against HIV & AIDS

Kisumu is Kenya’s fourth largest city and has an HIV prevalence more than three times that of the national prevalence, 17.5% compared to the national HIV prevalence of 4.9%. Kisumu has, in recent years, also witnessed a worrying trend in increasing sexual violence directed towards young women and girls. Within this context, cases of abuse can lead to life-long infection of HIV.

Community Fight Against HIV & AIDS was formed in 2015 by a group of women to support families affected by violence and HIV. In 2017, it established a safe house for child survivors of sexual violence and has since supported 2,671 child survivors. Egmont is supporting Community Fight to implement their Tuungane Tulinde Watoto project in the Obunga and Manyatta slums of Kisumu. The project targets 3,000 middle-school girls from 10 public primary schools and will train local actors such as teachers, community health volunteers, religious leaders, and administrators to respond to child sexual violence cases, and provide a reporting system through suggestion boxes in schools and a toll-free number. The project will also educate children and their parents through Community Participatory Educative Theatre and establish Child Rights clubs in schools, helping children to identify behaviours of abuse, how to respond and how to seek help.

Egmont & Community Fight
Started working together in 2022 9,100 people helped 2 projects funded Grant level - Core grant
Impact Areas

Girl Child Counselling Women Group

Young women in Kenya have been especially affected by the HIV epidemic. Due to the lack of economic opportunities that are available to them, many find themselves dependent on transactional sexual relationships, where they are vulnerable to diseases such as HIV. As a result, young women in Kenya aged 15 - 24 are twice as likely to contract HIV as their male counterparts.

GCCWG are expanding on the work they have previously done with The Egmont Trust, looking to reach more communities and beneficiaries than ever before. Their new project will focus on providing family planning options and counselling to thousands of women, giving them more control over their lives. It will also provide HIV testing and counselling services to over 7,000 young people, ensuring that they are aware of their HIV status. GCCWG are also focussing on improving the economic prospects of these young people, providing vocational training courses to 60 young women and 30 young men, ensuring that they are able to find employment. 69 HIV+ mothers are being provided with goats, to improve their nutritional intake and to offer a source of income through selling the milk.

Egmont & GCCWG
Started working together in 2015 26,522 people helped 4 projects funded Grant level - Enhanced Core
Impact Areas

The Nasio Trust

Over a quarter of the children in Kenya show stunted growth due to poverty and a lack of nutrition. The Nasio Trust is based in Kakamega County, in which 4,000 people are living with HIV & AIDS. This combined with high levels of poverty – over a third of the population live on less than $1.90 a day – means that many families are unable to send their children to school or feed them adequately.

The staff and volunteers of The Nasio Trust form an integral part of their local community. Their Egmont project is focussed on improving the community’s understanding of HIV and AIDS, particularly amongst young people where the rates of infection are worryingly high. The Nasio Trust have trained 100 young people to become peer mentors to go out into the local villages and educate their young people on the importance of HIV prevention measures, and how to access HIV testing. This project also features innovative work with local disabled youth, a group that has long been marginalised and stigmatised in Kenya. Nasio will be supporting them through their peer educators with HIV and sexual health information sessions.

Egmont & Nasio
Started working together in 2018 4,750 people helped 4 projects funded Grant level - Core
Impact Areas

Stories
Riziki's Story

Rural New Life Development (RUNELD)

Counselling is an integral part of the HIV testing process and helps people to come to terms with their positive diagnosis and the lifetime of treatment that lies ahead of them. In the rural areas of East Kabondo and East Gem, where RUNELD is based, many of those newly diagnosed with HIV are unable to access counselling services due to the long distances involved. As a result, adherence to the vital anti-retroviral treatment that halts the progress of HIV is low, increasing the likelihood of HIV transmission and incidences of AIDS-related illnesses.

RUNELD’s project focuses on young HIV+ women and mothers who are struggling to provide for themselves and their young children. Each woman is taught the importance of a nutritionally rich diet, that complements their medication and improves the health of the children in their care. Community counsellors visit each woman to ensure that they are adhering to their treatment and train them in home-based care to reduce incidences of opportunistic infections. 200 new women are put through the programme every year, 100 of whom are also supported to set up businesses such as food kiosks, pharmacies, and restaurants, enabling them to meet the costs of education for the children in their care.

Egmont & RUNELD
Started working together in 2016 1,953 people helped 4 project funded Grant level - Core
Impact Areas

Smart Child Kenya

In Kenya, economic and gender inequalities have led to women being 20% less likely to hold a salaried job than men and 10% less likely to be literate. Smart Child Kenya work in the town of Limuru, just north of the capital Nairobi, to improve the incomes and health of vulnerable families headed by or caring for young women and girls.

Over the course of their project, Smart Child Kenya will work to improve the incomes of 300 families through vocational and business training sessions, aiming to increase their daily incomes from $2 to $6. The women will also be taught how to make reusable sanitary pads, a product that is in great demand due to the unaffordable costs of menstrual hygiene products for girls living in Kenya. The project will also provide 28 families with goats, enabling them to earn a source of income from the milk produced. The offspring from the goats will be passed on to more families so that they can also benefit from this new source of income. Smart Child will also be supporting the educational costs of 150 children, ensuring that they stay in school and gain the skills they need to provide for themselves.

Egmont & Smart Child
Started working together in 2022 498 people helped 2 projects funded Grant level - Innovation
Impact Areas

St Philip of Neri Community Based Organisation

Kisumu, in western Kenya, is the country’s third largest metropolis and over 60% of the population lives in impoverished communities. The effect of the HIV & AIDS epidemic has exacerbated existing issues for families in Kisumu surrounding nutrition, access to healthcare and education. Perhaps the starkest example of this is that in Kisumu, the under-five mortality rate is 79 per 1,000 children – almost double the Kenyan average.

St Philip of Neri Community Based Organisation are an Egmont Partner working in Kisumu to rehabilitate children and youths who have had to resort to working or living on the streets. Life on the streets leaves these children vulnerable to abuse, violence, and extreme hardship as well as increased risk of HIV infection; Kisumu has an HIV prevalence rate of 16.3%, far higher than the Kenyan national average of 4.9%. St Philip of Neri have been supported by Egmont to rehabilitate 150 children, reintegrate them back into family homes and enrol them into schools. The project will also provide information to 840 children regarding HIV and other dangers that street children face. They will also provide medical assessments to street children, screening them for HIV and other diseases and referring them to the appropriate medical services.