Projects

Education

Education is essential: It helps eradicate poverty, empowers minds and critical thinking skills, and provides financial stability. In Kenya, primary education became free and compulsory in 2003; however, nursery and secondary education require fees. Most students must purchase uniforms and stationery, which are unaffordable for many Kenyans. Sawa Sawa invests 70% of its funds in education.

Food & Clothing

In Kenya, more than a quarter of children under five have stunted growth (UNICEF). Malnutrition refers not only to undernutrition but also to inadequate nutrition, missing the nutrients the body needs.

Sawa Sawa intervenes by administering missing nutrients or full meals and providing specific training to address malnutrition.

Medical Care

In Kenya access to health care facilities is limited, lack of adequate personnel and expertise to address the medical needs, poor infrastructure. Mostly, the health system is based on private and very expensive hospitals.

Sawa Sawa is assisting critical situations intending to provide mobile clinics in areas where no facilities are available.

Sawa House The Children's Home

In Kikopey we have a two-story facility that houses some children permanently and others temporarily. It is not an orphanage, but a support structure available to the community in close collaboration with the Children’s Office of Gilgil for children with difficult situations or who have nowhere else to go.

In 2018, the first 5 children were included. Today the structure has 15 children permanently, others stay for a few months after which they are placed again with a family or relatives. Our vision is to work well with limited numbers to give all the care and attention possible to our little guests. Before introducing a child, we do everything we can to help him/her within their family. The building is a base for training courses and a meeting center for the community.

Scholarships

Education is more than reading, writing, and arithmetic. It is one of the most important investments a country can make in its people and its future and is critical to reducing poverty and inequality. In Kenya primary education became free and compulsory in 2003, however, nursery and secondary education attract fees.

Mostly, all students are required to buy uniforms and stationeries not affordable for a high number of Kenyans. About 15.3 million or 80% of employed Kenyans are living in poverty, implying that their incomes aren’t sufficient to afford them and their families a decent living (Business Daily 29 Dec 2023). Sawa Sawa is paying almost 100 scholarships from nursery to university intending to offer more informal education in the future. Our children are not abandoned after secondary school, it is right at that moment that Sawa Sawa intervened with its volunteer people to support and give them know-how until they will be independent.

Malnutrition

During our initial years of operation, we endeavored to provide milk and meat to the most malnourished children every week. With a European mindset, we selected high-quality meat, both red and white. However, after a few months, we discovered that the meat was being resold by mothers for cheaper offal. A meal that children often aspire to consume is bread and soda. The underlying issue is primarily economic, as even small families with a monthly salary of 60-100 euros struggle to afford necessities like food, schooling, and clothing. Additionally, there persists a problem of ignorance regarding the importance of a balanced diet.

Studies have extensively shown the correlation between malnutrition and various health issues, psychological functions, and brain development. Nationally, 26% of children under five are stunted, with rates rising to 46% (UNICEF 2023) in certain regions. Sawa Sawa specifically intervenes by providing monthly food supplies to larger families without stable incomes, along with plans to offer employment to parents or support older children to become independent and contribute to the family’s livelihood.

Building Sawa House

The construction of the building took almost three years 2014-2017. From the beginning, it was decided to have a local resources-based approach. This last applies a cost-effective use of local skills, enterprises, labor, and materials in the infrastructure delivery process, ensuring that these investments are channeled through the local economy, so creating job opportunities and stimulating local markets.Sawa Sawa involved particularly the unskilled, poorer men and women within the community injecting incomes into the local communities and resulting in improving living standards such as diets, ability to access schools, clinics, etc.

Very honorable choice, however, with high implications: first of all, the incredible time-lapse and energy spent. It was a tough job for 3 years: EVERYTHING DONE LOCALLY BY LOCALS; for this reason, we are proud of our “Sawa House”. Today Sawa House is home to several vulnerable children, it is hosting training for young women and it is a place of social gathering for the Kikopey Community.

Two latrines built for Laca & Alpha Junior – Kajulu (Kisumu)

Before the formation of Sawa Sawa, a project addressing education support was carried out. Visiting remote Kisumu villages, it was noted that Laca & Alpha Junior lacked latrines, leading to unsanitary conditions with classes of 80-90 children. Sawa Sawa partnered with a local organization, overcoming material procurement challenges.

Local laborers efficiently built latrines, and grateful children gifted SawaSawa a “kalabash.” During a village visit, the team assisted a woman giving birth on a muddy road, escorting her to the nearest hospital. The next day, they found her well and discovered she named the baby “Valerio” in their honor.

Informal Daycare

On March 9, 2020, an informal nursery was established with two goals: to provide education and socialization for young children and to reintegrate school-age children into the official school curriculum. The service was offered for free in a rural area where large families, surviving on occasional or unprofitable jobs, often have 15-17 children. These children spent their days unattended in simple shacks.

In June 2022, the nursery closed after forming an agreement with nearby Murindu Primary School. Currently, support is extended to children in the public school kindergarten.

KCC Slum

“Over 3,000 people were rendered homeless after one of the largest slums in Naivasha was gutted down by fire yesterday night. KCC village located along the Nairobi-Nakuru highway was reduced to ashes in less than two hours adversely affecting tens of people.” (Standard Media – 2012).

KCC slum takes its name from Kenya Co-operative Creameries Ltd, a government company that employed most of these people years ago. In 2012, very few of them were employed by KCC Ltd: many unemployed, casual agricultural workers earning Ksh 153 a day. As Sawa Sawa, we allocated immediately some funds tobuy food, mattresses, and blankets to cover at least the emergency needs.

Microcredit

Nobel Prize 2006 Muhammad Yunus introduced the concept of microcredit: loans given to those who are too poor to qualify for traditional loans. As Sawa Sawa, we had a trial project in Kikopey, Gilgil. It was given a questionnaire to 50 people who declared to have an idea of “business activity”. They were selected 10: mostly women and several coming from IDP (internally displaced camps). Below are some of their stories.

Jackline

Jackline is a single mother of 3 children, jobless. What to do? We asked her how she can improve her life and ideas started to come up: first she suggested a retail shop or a stall to sell cabbages, beans, etc., but later she opted to sell charcoal (in Kenya, charcoal has met more than 70% of the domestic energy demand for cooking and heating over decades). However, there was a big challenge: charcoal is produced in the bush and the main market area is in Gilgil town.

We bought her a donkey for Ksh 6000 (around 55 euro) and given her around 8 euro as starting capital.

Rose

Rose, 27, single with 3 dependent children: a boy, Felix, 5, and 2 girls, Jane and Agnes aged 4 and 2. Currently a teacher in the refugee camp nursery school but without any qualification. She is very interested in becoming a true qualified teacher, but obviously she can’t afford her education since she is already struggling to support her 3 children. In Gilgil and Naivasha (the nearest area) there are no school for teachers. We did a search about the colleges in Nakuru (around 22 kms distant). In Kenya education for a nursery teacher is for 2 years.

We decided to invest in Rose and her willing to teach, financing the two years of college (around 900 euro). Rose graduated very well and today she is teaching in the public nursery schools. Her dream came true

Granny Jane

Granny Jane (50 years old) has 4 children: Rebecca is 34 years old, Paul 31, Amos 28, and little Margaret who is 7 years old.

Paul and Amos are not married and have no children, but Rebecca is single and has 7 children (Boniface 14, Jane 12, John 10, Kimani 5, Paul 4, Joseph 3 and Amos 9 months). Their grandmother looks after the children; Paul and Amos are chasing casual jobs and what Rebecca is doing is unclear, maybe to feed the children, every now and then she prostitutes herself and thus continues to procreate. A vicious cycle where it is complicated to move out.

After many great discussions we reached an agreement that we would have them built a small stall to sell vegetables and fruit and paid by start-up capital to buy the goods to build the small business. Unfortunately, however, with vegetables and fruit, they get very little, being and selling in an area that is very poor.

Situations such as that of Rebecca have not easy solution because of combination of different problems: the high number of family members, lack of education with consequent difficulty of transposing what is different or unknown, persevering with daily routine, unfortunately unprofitable.

Rebecca has never returned back the loan given and we were not able to do more because she moved far from Gilgil. However, we will never forget her changed mood only because for the first time someone trusted her.

Medical Care

Sawa House is a reference for the Community: people are aware we are doing our best to assist if it is possible. This is the reason why even if it was not in our plans, quite often we intervene for medical assistance. Private hospitals do not release the patients if they don’t pay the bill, and this happens also if in that specific hospital they are not able to treat them. Below are some of their stories.

Asha

Asha at the age of 27 years old had twin pregnancies. The husband, because she was not able to work no more in the field, sent her back to the father. One day Asha realized that the usual movement of the twins in her belly was missing, and she decided to visit the hospital. They left her two days without even a scan. Once she felt worst it was too late: the twins were death and her with very serious infection. Without dialysis she’d be dead in a few hours and in that hospital, it was not possible. Not only the bill to pay was very high. Her families came to us desperate during the night (curfew for covid was active). We paid the bill and accompanied her to another hospital able to provide the dialysis service. Today Asha is well, she found another husband and we hope one day she will also have a child.

John

John was 6 years old, like many other children, had burn scars. Unfortunately, most burn injuries occurred because in Kenya there is a large use of open fires, and charcoal, or paraffin stoves for cooking or lighting. John’s scars were all along his left leg. These obliged him to limp. Every day we saw him becoming sadder and sadder: to play with the other children for him was not easy at all. And a solution was available, but unfortunately not for his family pockets. We contacted the North Kinangop Hospital where Italian surgeons proceed with professional and excellent surgery. Today John ambulating normally and mostly he is playing a lot!

Chira

Cancer: the monster. Chira is a boy of 14 years old. He arrived to us with a medical report of the mother asking us to interpretate it.

We petrified: esophageal cancer. We sent him back home asking instead to send the mother. We are not doctors and we really didn’t know how to inform her. With difficulties we found the words and we suspected she didn’t understand, because she smiled and declared that it was not a problem. The beginning of calvary. We spent 2 months to find the hospital where they intubate her allowing to eat. There was a moment when she was almost dying of hunger and dehydration. Some hospitals really behaved in a horrible manner. They have been very tough months. But we never gave up. A tube was finally insert and Chira’s mom survived other 8 months: enough to get to the end of school and mostly to give us time to “prepare” the two brothers for the death of their only parent.

Projects

Education

Food & Clothing

Medical Care

Sawa House The Children's Home

Scholarships

Malnutrition

Building Sawa House

Two latrines built for Laca & Alpha Junior – Kajulu (Kisumu)

Informal Daycare

KCC Slum

Microcredit

Medical Care

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