Give Hope to Kisumu's Underprivileged Children

A heartfelt thank you for your unwavering support towards our projects. It is because of your support that we continue to bring about positive change in our communities. Our last report was full of impactful and fun-filled  updates from our Meals Program, Scholarship Fund, a trip that we made to Impala Park and exciting news of our Co-founder, Mansi getting selected for the Gratitude Network Fellowship.You can read that full report here: Updates from our Meals and Scholarship Program. In this report, we continue to share our efforts of bringing relief to our communities through the Meals Program despite the challenges they are facing.

Worst Hunger crisis being faced in Africa

Africa is currently facing its worst hunger crisis with over 160 million people going hungry. Kenya is one of the many countries grappling with this alarming issue.Factors such as skyrocketing food prices, ongoing conflicts within and outside the country, and the effects of climate change are the key drivers pushing millions to the brink of extreme hunger.

Even in these challenging times, RKF has continued to support communities in Kisumu and empower them by providing subsidized Meal Kits that allow families to have access to daily meals. Each pack contains dry rations weighing upto 16 kgs that sustain one family for 15 days.

Since our last report, we have served 36,400 meals to 182 families (910 beneficiaries). In this report, we wanted to share Monicah's story. A mother of 5 and caregiver to her niece, she used to face the challenge of providing for a total of 6 children. This responsibility has been a significant weight on her shoulders as she strives to ensure that they are all fed and enrolled in school.

Since becoming a part of the Meal Kits program, Monicah has experienced relief from these concerns. The highly priced rations no longer cause her as much anxiety. Her current focus revolves around managing add-ons to the meals such as vegetables like onions and tomatoes. The financial savings she makes from these kits help play a huge role in budgeting for various household expenses, especially school fees. Now, she no longer fears her children being sent home due to unpaid school or exam fees.

Monicah's story is a testament to the meaningful difference these meal kits can make in the lives of families and their school-going children when they are struggling with food insecurity. 

Giving Tuesday is coming up…

Giving Tuesday is a week away on 28th November 2023! A celebration of kindness and community that inspires the world to give back to their favourite causes. This year GlobalGiving is giving away $1.2 million in matching funds!!! The more you give, the more we receive in matching.

From all the million reasons to get matched this Giving Tuesday, you can pledge your donations to support families like Monicah’s, so they can continue having access to meals during these challenging times.

Links:

• Become a Patron: Make a Recurring Donation
• Read our latest report from our Girls Project!
• Subscribe to RKF's Newsletter for more updates

Dear Donor,

Greetings from warm and sunny Kisumu.

Thank you for your continued support to our project! In our last report we shared about the launch of our Scholarship Fund, Teacher Millicent’s powerful story of empowerment and RKF’s GlobalGiving Badges. You can read that full report here: Exams and Scholarships. In this report we share an update from our scholars as promised in the last report. We will also provide an update of the impact of the Meals Program in the current environment of economic distress in Kenya and we also share a fun event that took place over the past six months that we haven’t yet shared.

Meals Program

The continuous rise in food prices and political unrest in the country have created immense economic distress. Many families we work with can only afford to put a single meal on the table with the little income they generate. In the past year the price of staples like maize meal (ugali flour) have more than doubled while the prices of beans, green grams, oil and sugar have gone up by drastically. Through your support of the Meals Program, we have continued to provide meal kits to vulnerable families through this time. 

Since our last update in April 2023, we have served an additional 41,200 meals and crossed the milestone of serving 700,000 meals since we started this program back in 2016. 

You can continue supporting our work by making a recurring donation of as little as $20 upto $200 per month to to help us reach more students and families through this program. $20 can provide a meal kit that feeds 200 meals to a family every month. Currently, GlobalGiving is matching all recurring donations by 100% after the fourth recurrence of the recurring donation.

Scholarship Fund: First term update

In our last report we shared the launch of the new Scholarship Fund created to support students transition from primary to secondary school. Two terms of the academic year are now complete and we are happy to report that all the scholars are healthy and performing well at their respective schools.

We held our first Scholars’ Workshop during the term school break. During the intensive workshop, all the scholars shared their experience of their first term in high school. Through the workshop we were able to provide the scholars with training on setting SMART goals, intention setting and time management to help them with the challenges of transitioning from primary to secondary school. This was followed by a team work challenge designed to help them build their collaborative working skills. In this challenge, they built a 3D model of the Sydney Opera House in less than 1 hour.

Amidst all the work we are doing through our flagship programs, we have also been find joyous moments with school students through some fun activities over the past six months.

A Trip to Impala Park

For the first time since the pandemic, we were able to take the students of Brima ECD in Kondele and Valley Learning Centre in Nyalenda to Impala Sanctuary in Kisumu for an educational day out and a fun picnic. The day started off with a guided tour of the park where students saw many the animals they had only seen in books up until that time. They learnt about their eating habits, their lives and how they came to be at Impala Sanctuary. This was followed by an incredible boat ride in Lake Victoria and a lakeside picnic filled with food, arts and crafts. 

Gratitude Network Fellowship

Last month, the Rahul Kotak Foundation (RKF) and its Co-Founder and CEO Mansi Kotak were selected as a 2023 Gratitude Network Fellow out of over 1,500 applicants. The fellowship is a year-long program that will help RKF scale up its work to be able to reach even more students living in marginalized communities.