Family Support Project

It’s hard to know the exact numbers of children without homes. It’s likely to be in the tens of thousands in Nairobi alone. Over 100,000 women all over Kenya work in prostitution, leaving many of their children without homes or without parental support.

How we help

Restoring the family unit, providing a home, a better line of work, and pastoral support can restore dignity and create pathways to a hopeful future.

Together with Compassion CBO, we work with families using a 6-month plan: we support them in finding work (or a new form of employment if their current one is not productive or they are not in employment), advising and providing access to family-planning, assisting with financial costs of rent and food, offering counselling, and giving them encouragement and belief in themselves for their future. We try to link the Child Sponsorship Programme with the Family Support Project as these families are so in need. By the end of the 6 months the family will be in a better position to support themselves.

Sadly, many adults have not been educated and therefore are unable to get a well-paid job. Very often the salary is so limited that it only covers rent, and not food. The mother might go into prostitution to make money and leave her children, leaving them without a home and on the street. The mother may misuse alcohol in order to blank out the pain of life and become unable to care for her children and unable to work and make money. Without money for rent and food many families simply go hungry. It is often the case that a child will still need to be sponsored after the 6-month period, to ensure that sufficient money is coming in to enable the child, and their family, to eat.

Many women have had children when they were only a child themselves; some have children that they don’t know of their whereabouts – perhaps because they have turned to alcohol misuse and have been unable to care for them; many women have been victims of violence and abuse, beaten by men throughout their life; children are often from different fathers; mother’s sometimes leave their children with another family member if they have a child out of wedlock, and move on if they then marry. Therefore, it is critical that we work alongside these women, to educate and support them, and offer counselling where we are able.

Very often families become separated: this could be due to a mother entering into prostitution as she feels there is no other way to make money, a parent misusing alcohol and being unable to support their family, or a parent dying, leaving a child (or children) without any adult support. We bring families back together that have been parted, we keep families together that are struggling, and we support families with their individual circumstances and difficulties.

Many of our children do not have permanent homes and some live on the street. By supporting families with housing, food and family life these young children will no longer need to sleep on the street, will not feel the pain of hunger, and will no longer miss out on a productive and positive family life. We also relieve the financial burden from families who have an elderly family member raising young children due to death of the children’s parents, allowing them the rest that they deserve.