Our Programs
Education
Our primary focus in the Kenya is to ensure that the bright and needy students graduate from primary schools get access to high school education therefore raising literacy levels at the local level. We work with partners to tackle the difficult problems surrounding this effort. Through public policy and communications, we work to advance the organization’s programmatic goals by building a bursary fund that will sponsor the bright and needy high school students in the rural areas. We are working with partners to support the scheme to benefit such students, particularly those from underserved communities. We also mobilize College and University scholarships for outstanding low-income students across the country and internationally.
Our goals include:
- Building schools at the rural areas to expand the existing and over-stretched learning facilities and sanitation facilities
- Providing learning materials and computers to schools
Researching and identifying data that provides community and policymakers with the information they need to develop the rural areas including establishing research centres.
Emergency Relief
The Medishare Africa (MA) is committed to responding to disasters in Kenya by working with local communities and other like-minded NGOs involved in the emergency intervention in a way that meets the humanitarian imperative and increases capacity to mitigate against and respond to the future emergency situations. In this regard, we deal with famine relief among others. We mobilize emergency equipment like paramedic ambulances, fire fighting machines and other medical equipment. The organization has plans to build a Therapeutic Feeding Centre in Kitui County.
Food Security & Agricultural Development
Three-quarters of the 1.1 billion people in extreme poverty live in rural areas, and most of them rely on agriculture for their food and income. We work to help small farmers in both Arid and Semi-Arid areas boost their productivity, increase their incomes, and build better lives for their families. We construct both small and large scale dams in Arid and Semi- arid areas to assist farmers have access to water for domestic agriculture and water for livestock. We work with farmers to improve crop yields as a way of the Local Development Program that will accomplish the goal of helping people lift themselves out of poverty.
Micro-Finance & Enterprise
Many people that do have jobs do not make enough to provide for their basic needs. This situation along with dependence breeding foreign aid and relief, have created an environment where extreme poverty is rampant. We work with local leadership to utilize the assets within a community to create viable enterprise opportunities. Establish a Community Innovation Centre for the young talented students as a place where they demonstrate their skills and knowledge. Through identifying and training entrepreneurs we are helping to launch revenue-generating businesses that are wiping out material poverty in all communities. Micro Enterprise Projects:
– Skills training and Employment opportunities – Small business training and coaching
– Fish pond
Water, Health and Sanitation
Unsafe water and poor sanitation and hygiene are leading causes of illness and death in the developing world, especially among children. We are working with like-minded partners to assist millions of people gain access to safe and sustainable sanitation and improve the quality of their water and hygiene. The organization drills boreholes to provide cleaning drinking water to communities at rural areas. We build latrines at schools besides constructing health facilities (hospitals) to reduce the high mortality rates among the children in the country. We will be partnering with The Punch in launching Mobile Telemedicine Clinics Project.
Volunteerism Programme
We run a volunteerism programme where we engage the youths both locally and international in meaningful activities to give those who are outside the formal institution of learning or self-learning the opportunity to explore the world and make their contribution to society, that they give, and in giving, benefit themselves. This is to expose the youths to the value of volunteerism and the value of serving communities and others. We host volunteers and organize for areas of attachment at a fee per volunteer based on the period of volunteerism here in Kenya especially to the international volunteers.
Leadership & Governance
- Youth Leadership program
To nurture the youth into responsible leadership at various levels including corporate, public service and religious sectors
- Technology:
Community Knowledge Centre Project
To provide interested individuals and professionals working at the community level with a “one-stop- shop for the retrieval and exchange of development information and data. This is a centre where people come and acquire training and skills aimed at accelerating developmental agenda within the region.
WATER PROBLEM
Background
Kenya‘s eastern low plains rise to central highlands bisected by the Great Rift Valley in the west. Kenya’s southern district is also administratively marked by the Great Rift Valley Province of Kenya. Over 50 percent of Kenyans are living below the poverty line. The HIV/AIDS pandemic has compounded the deteriorating health standards and resulted in growing destitution, and unprecedented levels of poverty. The water crisis in Kenya is disrupting social and economic activities throughout the targeted areas. Unfortunately, the current wave of droughts and water shortages in Kenya as a whole is expected to continue. The water crisis is due not only to the wave of droughts and poor management of the water supply – under-investment, unfair allocation of water, rampant deforestation, pollution of water supplies by untreated sewage, and a huge population explosion. Kenya is limited by an annual renewable fresh water supply of only 647 cubic meters per capita, and is classified as a water scarce country.
In Kenya, as in much of Africa, the lack of safe drinking water causes many severe problems including dehydration, starvation and disease. The daily chore of fetching water is no small task in rural Kenya, and young women often walk as far as 10 – 20 Kilometers to collect whatever water they can from a polluted, dirty, hand-dug well, full of parasites and bacteria. These wells are also structurally dangerous and often collapse when they get deep enough.
In Kenya, the high mortality rate among children under five years old is primarily due to waterborne diseases such as gastroenteritis, diarrhea, malaria, and amoebic dysentery, to name just a few. Contamination from human and livestock waste is also a major cause of water- related diseases, despite the sanitary disposal methods of most of the population. Flies and other disease-carrying insects are drawn to unsanitary water sites and compound the risk of infection. All of these problems are exacerbated by the fact that economic hardship, inadequate education and lack of public transport prevent many individuals from seeking healthcare in the early stages of an illness. The Medishare Africa will be addressing all these challenges to better transform lives.