C/O St.Camillus Dala Kiye Children Welfare Home

MERCY ORPHANS SUPPORT GROUP PROGRAM

C/O ST.CAMILLUS DALA KIYE CHILDREN WELFARE HOME P.O BOX 119 – 40401 KARUNGU [email protected]

OVC Project

ANNUAL REPORT

October 2011 – September 2012 ACRONYMS

HIV Human Immune Virus

AIDS Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome

MOSGUP Mercy Orphans Support Group Program

OVC Orphans and Vulnerable Children

DAC Day of African Child

WOD World Orphans Day

WAD World AIDS Day

PLWA People Living With AIDS

ITN Insecticide Treated Nets

CHW Community Health Worker

OWT OVC Wellbeing Tool

PSP Private Service Provider OVC AGE COHORTS

Description Number Gender

Male Female 1- 5 Years 302 148 154 6- 10 Years 702 359 343 11- 15 Years 1160 595 565

16 Years & Above 758 477 281

PIE CHART SHOWING OVC DISTRIBUTION PER AGE COHORT

Total Number of OVC Per Cohort 302; 10%

1-5 Years 758; 26% 6-10 Years 702; 24% 11-15 Years 16-Above Years 1160; 40% MOSGUP BRIEF

Description Number Gender Male Female Total number of OVC after all exits 2,922 1,579 1,343 Total number of households 1075 99 976 Total number of CHWs 68 17 51 Total number of caregivers 1075 98 977 Total number of caregivers tested 1075 97 968 Total number of HIV+ caregivers 331 23 308 Total number of OVC tested 2,750 1,498 1,252 Total number of HIV+ OVC 54 23 31 Total number of OVC in ECD 328 170 158 Total number of OVC in Class 1 156 76 80 Total number of OVC in class 2 221 104 107 Total number of OVC in class 3 253 132 121 Total number of OVC in class 4 279 140 139 Total number of OVC in class 5 281 146 135 Total number of OVC in class 6 263 135 128 Total number of OVC in class 7 339 170 169 Total number of OVC in class 8 258 168 90 Total number of OVC in Form 1 126 73 53 Total Number of OVC in Form 2 123 80 43 Total number of OVC in Form 3 75 53 22 Total Number of OVC in Form 4 67 47 20 Total number of OVC in Vocational training 26 21 05 Total number of OVC not started school 137 64 73

2011 KCPE RESULT ANALYSIS FOR OVC

50 45 40 35 30 25 MALE 20 15 FEMALE 10 5 0 351 AND 251 - 350 201 -250 150 -200 BELOW ABOVE 150

2011 KCSE RESULT ANALYSIS FOR OVC GRAD TOTA E L

A - A- 1 B+ 2 B 4 B- 9 C+ 13 C 12 C- 2 D+ 3 D - D- - E -

FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE OF SILC GROUPS IN KARUNGU DIVISION

Profile of Groups Aggregate % Average

Total Number of current members 4,349 22.9 Total Number of men 696 16.0% 3.7 Total Number of women 3,653 84.0% 19.2 Total Number of Supervised groups 190 Total number of graduated groups - Average age of groups (weeks) 22.6 Membership growth rate 12.6% Attendance rate 83.4% 18.8 Retention rate 100% Number of members belonging to graduated groups - Total number of people assisted by the programme 4,349 % of members with loans outstanding 72.2% Composition of Assets, Liabilities and Equity Assets Loan fund cash on hand and at bank 2,643,614 17.2% 13,914 Total cash in other funds 685,066 4.4% 3,606 Value of loans outstanding 12,071,560 78.4% 63,535 Property 0 0.0% 0 Liabilities and members Equity 15,400,240 100.0% 81,054 Liabilities 0 0.0% 0 Debts 0 0.0% 0 Members Equity 15,400,240 100.0% 81,054 Total cash in other funds 685,066 4.4% 3,606 Savings 11,607,586 75.4% 61,093 Retained earnings 3,107,588 20.2% 16,356

INTRODUCTION Mercy Orphans Support Group Program is a community based organization under St. Camillus mission hospital Karungu.It was initiated and registered with the social service department in the year 2000 as a community based organization providing care and support to orphans left behind as a result of HIV/AIDS related deaths. The organization has been involved in community care and support for orphans and vulnerable children in Karungu Division, Nyatike District. The organization aims at strengthening the capacity of households taking care of orphans and vulnerable children to enable them provide and support the basic needs of these orphans.

ACHIEVEMENTS A) CLIENT LEVEL Medical support Health is an important aspect in the life of a human being. It is only when you are physically; mentally and emotionally healthy that we could presume you have good health. The project aims at ensuring that orphans and vulnerable children being supported get proper medical attention whenever they fall sick. The components of this service include protecting children from infections and diseases through immunizations and health education sessions, ensuring that the OVC can access essential health services, promoting the health seeking behavior of the households, environmental sanitation and promotion of personal hygiene.

To ensure that the strategy works effectively, the project works closely with government health facilities to provide health care services to the project beneficiaries and in return the project supplements the cost of treatment incurred by the project direct beneficiaries. The referrals are made from the office and also within the community by selected community health workers to enable easy access of services by the project beneficiaries. This year, 1,108 OVC were referred for medical care (605 male and 503 female). Out of the total number referred and treated, 57 OVC were treated as inpatients at the sub district and St Camillus mission hospital. 24 caregivers also received inpatient treatment at the two referral sites and their medical bills settled by the project. The most common ailments treated in the year were malaria and respiratory tract infections.

Health education is a mechanism through which communities are able to acquire new knowledge and skills that enable them prevent disease occurrence that arise due to poor disposal of human waste, contaminated water and poor environmental sanitation. Through the health education, 386 sessions were held in the community reaching 1,553 caregivers (212 male and 1,341 female). These sessions are done at the group and household level.

Through home visits , follow-ups on immunization schedule for children under the age of two years was done to ascertain if they finished the full course of immunization. During these visits, nutritional status of the children was also monitored and nutrition education sessions held with the caregivers. During the year, 123 OVC (59 males, 64 females) were visited and their schedules checked. They were advised to attend clinic regularly for weight monitoring up to five years.

This year, 197 caregivers (21 male,176 female) and 42 OVC (19 male,23 females) under ART program were visited and reached with health messages that focused on positive health seeking behavior, drug adherence and importance of good nutrition. Through these meetings, educative messages are passed to the caregivers. The meetings also enabled the PLWHAs to share and learn from one another to overcome challenges facing them from time to time. Apart from the group meetings, home visits are conducted at the household level to monitor their general health progress. Through continuous networking and collaboration, 50 OVC (all females) benefitted from re-usable sanitary towels from tuungane project, which is a project working in a neighboring division and is promoting girl child education, to minimize the problem of absenteeism among girls during their monthly periods.

Protection This component aims at ensuring that children are protected from abuse, exploitation and neglect. Mercy orphans have spearheaded advocacy programs on the rights and welfare of the children while working closely with the district children’s office. During the year, 5 stakeholders meetings organized by the district children’s office was attended by staffs of mercy orphans on how quality of services can be improved to OVC and various ways of upholding children’s rights. This reporting period, 94 caregivers support group meetings were held to enlighten them on the rights of the children and where they can seek assistance whenever children are abused or their rights violated. Total of 459 caregivers (44 males, 415 females) were reached, and together with these, emphasis was also made on the importance of ensuring that each child had a birth certificate. A total of 173 OVC (96 males, 77 females) were assisted with the processing of birth certificates.

Psychosocial Support Mercy orphans support group program implements its interventions through community based approach system. During the year we were able to conduct 1,514 home visits, where as our community health workers conducted 34,714 home visits, it is through his home visits that we identify various problems affecting OVCs and their caregivers then conduct guidance and counseling sessions to enable them solve their problems. We held 222 guidance and counseling sessions to OVCs (124 males, 129 Females) were reached, 466 guidance and counseling sessions were done to caregivers (134 males, 526 females). Vulnerable families often have to cope with a combination of difficult and stressful circumstances such as poverty, disease, and death. These circumstances usually produce a range of negative emotions in children, which may include fear, depression, anxiety, stress, hopelessness and grief. Psychosocial support is an on-going process of meeting the physical, social, emotional, mental, and spiritual needs of individuals, all of which are essential elements of meaningful and positive human development. Psychosocial support is especially important for children and youth.

Children and youth who are emotionally healthy are more likely to be self-confident, perform better in school and have coping skills that can help them through hard times, and practice healthy behaviors later in life. The interventions that are implemented by the project have enabled community members to appreciate children having rights which should be respected, and that they need care and protection. The project team is involved in household keep themselves abreast with the activities in the household that promote child development. During the household visit, the staffs have one on one discussion with the caregiver or the child to help understand and share the household needs that can be addressed by the project and its partners. It is during these discussions that the project staffs prioritize the household needs and help the family plan on how to address the identified needs. In this year we held one meeting with OVCs in secondary and Vocational schools where discussed performance, problems and difficulties they encounter in their school life. We encouraged them to work hard in school as education is the key to success a total of 50 OVCs were met (36 males, 14 Females).

Education OVC studying at night using the donated lights

Mercy orphans strive to promote education amongst school going children. It has been our major goal that children receive quality education so that they are able to develop skills and gain knowledge that would enable them live a better life in future.Inorder to ensure that this takes place the project has been supporting OVC at pre-school, secondary and tertiary levels. Since the project inception, it has been able to support 163 and 175 OVC in secondary and vocational respectively. Currently, 29 OVC have been absorbed in the government universities, while 134 OVC joined various middle level colleges. 40 OVC from vocational training are currently working in the Jua kali sector. This financial year, we have been able to pay nursery levies to 229 OVC (127 males, 102 females} within the 33 schools that we work with, and also managed to pay school fees for 120 OVC in various secondary schools (81 male and 39 female) The project also supports students pursuing vocational training courses in various institutions, this year, 21 students benefited from this support (17 male and 04 female). We also paid school fee to 4 female OVC in special schools. These payments were made through a cost sharing system with the caregivers and despite supporting the OVC to this level the challenge of school fees still remains as there are other levies charged in school overruling the fact that primary education is free.

During the year, 125 OVC received school uniform support from the project. (73 males, 52 females). This was done based on needs assessment, on those who are most needy.80 households with very old caregivers received solar lanterns, aimed at improving the performance of children in these households, since most of them had the problem of buying paraffin, hence they could not do their private studies at night. A total of 250 OVC benefitted and monitoring of their performance is still ongoing.

Economic strengthening SILC PSP Retrofit Project Improvement Summary

The SILC program was initiated as a sustainability strategy for the targeted area where the TCB project was being implemented. The project tries to promote interventions among the project direct and indirect beneficiaries. It was integrated into the TCB project to help improve the household economy among the supported beneficiaries. In this financial year, the SILC project had a target to recruit 110 groups.

The project managed to recruit 193 groups with a membership composition of 4349 (696 males, 3653 Females) with non project beneficiaries taking the lead in performing SILC activities. There has been change in membership composition in most groups Within the Division with a steady growth in membership since the demand for the same has increased to fill the gap between the poor and the formal financial sector. In membership there have been a tremendous increase in youth inclusion in some groups. The membership growth rate stands at 12.6% and meetings attendance rate at 83.4%.

Strategies for Program Quality:

 Continued monthly monitoring meetings at PSP level, Supervisor level and Organizational level.

 The super PSP to enhance supervision of the groups through regular visits

 Strengthening of the PSP Networks

Challenges:

 Increasing number of groups hence need for means of transport for the PSP

 Increased demand for the SILC interventions in the neighboring districts

Ways to address the challenges  Provision of bicycles to PSPs  Extension of the interventions to the new areas

Agricultural Interventions The main economic activity within Karungu Division practiced by majority of people is agriculture, as such the project initiated agricultural activities together with the community members and have been closely following its progress to ensure that the project continue to expand to the household level. The agricultural interventions in place include poultry production, horticulture production, JFFLS and goat rearing.

Despite the initiative of the project to promote food security in the area, implementation of these activities has been faced with a lot of challenges that include unreliable weather patterns, laxity by group members to effectively carry out the activities thus inhibiting its success. To address the above challenges we held a divisional stakeholders meeting with the agricultural department who agreed to assist in providing technical support and follow up on the agricultural activities initiated by the project within the division. 38 School visits were conducted to 8 schools where the junior farmer and life skills activities were initiated. Currently the 8 schools have harvested the produce. These JFFLS engaged their farms by planting tomatoes, local vegetables, kales and maize. During the school visits we realized that the teachers that were trained on JFFLS have been transferred and the remaining teachers had little or no interest. We urged the pupils to embrace JFFLS and practice what they learnt in school at home. From our home visits we learnt that some OVC are practicing this.

We also made 31 follow up visits to 10 groups practicing horticultural production. All groups harvested produce from their farm this year and the money was put in their SILC kitty waiting sharing during liquidation. One of the caregivers, Pamela Odero, has since initiated her own farm but still engage in the group activities, she has since been into a contract with a local secondary school where her child is learning and pays her school fees by providing the school with Sukumawili. 649 caregivers are benefiting from horticulture (68 males, 581 females) In poultry we have been visiting 7 groups doing poultry, this year 5 groups shared the hens among themselves and are now doing poultry keeping at the household level. 2 groups are still doing poultry at group level where all group members are engaged. 10 follow up visits were made to the groups and the households doing poultry. 466 caregivers (53 males, 413 females) are benefiting. One group Sidika CSG sold all their hens and used the money to buy 8 goats. The again contributed communally to start their poultry project where they got two improved cocks from IFAD.

Caregiver Level Activities Horticultural farming by caregivers Caregiver in her Kitchen garden

Caregivers play a vital role in ensuring that the needs of orphans are catered for. It is for this reason that the project focuses on educating them and assisting them find pathways in which they can access more resources to meet their family needs. This year we held 94 caregiver support group meetings. In these meeting we held discussions with the caregivers on viable activities in their catchment area. We also emphasized the need to pool resources so that they ensure their children accessed education which was

raised as a major challenge. Through the projects initiative 20 groups registered with the social services department, three of the groups have actually benefited as they received food support from the government relief food project. The project staff encouraged each caregiver to have a kitchen garden that would enable them save on cost of buying vegetables and could even use the money got from sales to buy some few household items. This year 313 kitchen gardens were initiated. The main challenge is inadequate water supply within the household to make the activity more sustainable. We also informed the caregivers on the kinds of services they could get from the government department these include registering for NHIF, disease control where caregivers with children under five years were advised to take their children for immunization, access to devolved funds. We also enlightened them on various ways of upholding children rights and places to seek assistance when the rights are violated.

Objective One: - 2,922 OVC and their families demonstrate enhanced medical and psychological well being

Planned Activities Achieved Gender Annual Remarks/Comment Target M F Refer OVCs for treatment 1,108 605 503 2,400 Refer caregivers for treatment 482 84 398 - Guidance and counseling for OVC 253 124 129 240 Done in 222 sessions Guidance and counseling for care 660 134 526 240 This was done in 466 sessions givers both at group and household level. OVC on TB treatment 00 00 00 00 HIV+ OVCs 42 19 23 54 OVC chronically ill (not TB/HIV) 00 - - 00 HIV+ Caregivers 197 21 176 331 Home visits by staff 1,514 - - 2,400 It was difficult carrying out home visits during rainy season Home visits by CHWS 34,714 - - 43,956 Provide health education sessions for 1,553 212 1341 1,221 This a cumulative value, done in caregivers 386 sessions Drug adherence sessions for PLWA’s 707 111 596 331 This is cumulative, done in 296 sessions

Objective 2:- Targeted Local communities prioritize the needs of OVC households and carry out activities to care for and support them

Planned Activities Achieved Gender Annual Remarks/Comment Target M F Conduct caregiver support group 94 44 415 240 meetings Strengthen SILC groups 190 669 3653 140 Kitchen gardens/multi storey 313 27 276 100 gardening Follow up on groups with Dairy goats 23 58 455 5 groups 23 visits made to the 5 groups Follow up on Junior farmer field 1,404 572 832 12 JFFLS This cumulative value, done school in 38 visits. Follow up on Poultry farming –Care 466 53 413 4 groups This was done in 10 visits givers benefitting Divisional stakeholders meetings and 05 39 37 4 Cumulative no. during the linkages with MOA five meetings Facilitation of AAC 06 25 37 04 activities./Supervisory visits by DCO Quarterly AAC Meetings 04 2 meetings done at the divisional level and 2 at the district level Quarterly Meeting with OVC 01 36 14 02 Ensure each OVC has Birth 173 96 77 250 Registration Certificate Sensitize children and community 283 70 213 500 Sensitization done during members on child rights home and group visits

Objective Three: - The targeted households and their families demonstrate improved quality of life Planned Activities Achieved Gender Annual Remarks/Comment M F Secondary school support 120 81 39 108 Cost sharing of fees done with caregivers. Payment of Nursery school levies 230 128 102 230 Payment of vocational training fee 21 17 04 17 Special education support 05 - 04 05 Provision of school Uniforms 125 73 52 124 Provision of Re-usable sanitary 50 50 Done in collaboration with Towels Jukumu Langu Initiative

Objective Four: - 2,922 OVC and their family members gain skills necessary to reduce their risk of HIV infection Planned Activities Achieved Gender Annual Remarks/Comment M F Conduct school visits 23 sessions 405 405 800 Visits made to conduct counseling sessions, supervise JFFLs activities. Roll out in-charge to schools 09 135 135 12 Marking World Aids Days 01 320 430 01 Marked in collaboration with DK PLWA monthly support group 05 groups 150 541 12 Cumulative number of meeting members HIV/AIDs Education session with 1,490 742 748 24 Done in 126 sessions pupils Family fun Day Objective 5:- Strengthen the capacity of the MOSGUP to deliver quality care and support to 2,922 OVC and their families Planned Activities Achieved Gender Annual Remarks/Comment M F Conduct CHWs monthly update 44 17 51 48 Meetings done at community meeting meeting points (4 meetings per month) Monthly staff meeting 10 02 04 12 Update meeting with SILC FAs 11 09 01 12 . Monthly meeting with 09 04 05 12 implementation committee Quarterly review meeting 02 41 28 4 Networking and collaboration 08 14 01 - These were done with the meetings ministry of Agriculture, Department of children affairs, Department of registrations of Births and Deaths

CHALLENGES 1. The resources are in-sufficient for complementary services & growing needs of OVC & PLWA 2. There are few actors hence the overwhelming needs of OVC 3. Unfavourable practices that fuel HIV spread hence increase in the number of orphans and vulnerable children

WAYS TO ADDRESS THE CHALLENGES 1. Solicit for funds from donors and private contributions, also design programs with community contribution e.g. the SILC 2. Participate in meetings and involve other actors in joint plans for shared resources 3. Undertake education interventions through BCC strategies e.g. Life skills interventions and the in charge methodology for the children