Catching up with any of the CRED Partners over a cuppa is always a highlight of my role, especially when I am fortunate enough to be in their locality whilst drinking that cuppa. The most recent catch up for me was with Kenyanito, at a coffee shop in Nairobi, whilst we chatted about all things IDAK.
IDAK is still a relatively new organisation, but it is going from strength to strength. Its over-riding aim is to strive to rebuild broken dreams to ensure that vulnerable children, young people and families regain hope and their confidence in dreaming creatively again. One example of how this has been achieved includes the twenty plus young people who are being supported to continue through to secondary education (and in so doing smash the glass-ceiling of their families who have never progressed beyond basic primary education in the past). Another includes the resettlement of some elderly widows who were living in squalor and begging for rent, due to patriarchal customs that prevents widows from having access to land or home, and in so doing allow those women to realise their dream of having a rent-free home. Then there are the children now able to go to school for the full day each day, as their dream of having a meal at lunch rather than walking for 2 hours to get home for lunch has been realised. And there are some single mum’s who have been given a little bit of start up money to create income generating activities (IGAs) which in turn is helping them realise their dream of being able to stand on their own two feet financially.
Chatting with Kenyanito today we discussed many of these programmes. Partly what has been achieved so far, and also the plans for progressing the different programmes further. The rural feeding programme is to increase the vegetable bed component, with the plan to sell any excess produce and generate income to help expand the project further. A new suite of urban feeding programmes are being developed as well - some are along the foodbank style for targeted families, and there is also a feeding programme being planned for a kindergarten located in a Nairobi slum which has some particularly vulnerable children attending. Simple business skills are to be taught to single mums as they prepare to embark on IGAs, as well as provision of mentors to walk with those women through the first steps of their roles as small business owners. These IGAs include things like making and selling various street foods, hair braiding, second-hand clothes and shoes stalls – fairly simple activities that don’t require huge amounts of start up capital, but could make a big difference to the self-perception and confidence of the women, as well as the resources available to them. We chatted about the young people on bursaries, and the university v vocational training choices to be made by them, and the tension between unrealistic aspirations and realistic dreams and how to help the young people in those decisions without biasing them one way or the other.
We also chatted about some collaborative projects that are in the pipeline between IDAK and WOLOM (the church ministry that Kenyanito and Val head up). One of these is the use of the WOLOM church building to allow IDAK to provide a safe space for young mums seeking affordable childcare whilst they go out to work and realise their dream of being financially independent. Just to give some context to the circumstances of the women who seek this childcare: they are predominantly single mothers who are living in or on the edge of poverty and don’t have the support network to allow them to stop work. The types of work that they might be doing include street-trading, informal domestic labour, washing clothes, cooking foods over charcoal stoves. Having a young child with you for any of these is incredibly risky – sometimes you might not even get the work, at other times the child is at risk from wandering into the roads, getting burnt through playing near the stove or getting injured through playing amongst the rubbish that is ever present in these neighbourhoods. So, to enable them to have access to safe and affordable childcare is a lifeline, and when this project opens up it will allow dreams to come closer to being fulfilled.
There were so many more angles to the conversation, but the above gives a taster into just how inspiring and wonderful our chat was, and how impactful the work of IDAK already is. I wish it every blessing as it progresses forward.
NB If any of you would like to get involved in / support the work of IDAK – do let me know, I’ve got plenty of ideas!!
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