Distance support
The St. Camillus Dala Kiye is located in the province of Nyanza, in western Kenya, on Lake Victoria. This area has the highest HIV rate in Kenya; community life has been shattered by the deep poverty conditions originated from the devastating impact of AIDS. Orphan children have been the most negatively affected and have been deprived of all physical, social, economic and psychological needs, which are fundamental for their growth and development. The community social supporting network is getting weaker and weaker while the number of children left on their own is increasing. Behind a facade of discipline, orphan and HIV+ children are abused, abandoned and exposed to unnecessary suffering. They are vulnerable and lack family care and protection.
The Dala Kiye project has a vision for orphan children to be completely integrated in the normal community life, which could give them the chance to acknowledge and understand their own potential and enable them to create a better future for themselves.
The program is aimed at mobilising the entire community in order to enable orphans and those who run the risk of HIV/AIDS infection to improve their living conditions, to increase the possibility of surviving AIDS and to become active members of their own communities.
The distance support project beneficiaries are children monitored until the end of the primary school. An economic contribution is needed in order to cope with school and nutrition expenses. These children are often excluded and marginalised from their own community because they are orphans to parents who died from AIDS. The need to provide them with education represents a great incentive for the local community to continously engage in supporting orphans. The project goal is to fight illiteracy and ignorance as a key to fight poverty.