Increased Care and Support to Orphans and Vulnerable Children in the Great Lakes Region of East Africa

is a cooperative agreement being implemented by AVSI in the countries of Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya with funding from USAID through the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and from AVSI.

Success Stories

Mama Pendo and Her New House

Kware is a huge slum situated on the northeast side of Nairobi (Ongata Rongai, Kajiado North District in the Rift Valley Province) and is one of the most populated slums in Kenya, after Kibera. Most of Ongata Rongai is a quarry where people make a living by digging and breaking stones for building. Casual labor is the primary source of income for most residents, in large part because of the poor soil quality which makes agriculture unproductive.

The HIV/AIDS pandemic continues to aggravate the difficult conditions of the slum dwellers, where malnutrition, disease, and lack of education affect most households. AVSI currently provides support to 324 orphans and other vulnerable children served by the Evangelising Sisters of Mary, an African congregation of religious sisters.

In 2005, the sisters met with many families and identified the most vulnerable living in the slum. At this time they met Mary Machirima, otherwise known as Mama Pendo, a 40 year old Tanzanian lady married to a Kenyan man and with three children. Mama Pendo’s house destroyed on a raid by the city council determined to drive out illegal squatters in Kware slum. With both parents unemployed and five children, the family’s situation was dire. For a time, Mama Pendo and her family moved from place to place, burdening other slum residents, until finally setline in a big hole, covered by rags and a tent in the vicinity of an open sewage system.

Sister Lucy Nduta and Sister Mary Wambui, the responsible for the collaboration with AVSI, were moved by the needs of this family and took immediate action on behalf of the children. Two children, Pendo and Gathoni, were offered sponsorships to attend nursery and secondary school respectively through the AVSI OVC program. Furthermore the Sisters asked AVSI for more support in the form of materials (iron sheets) to build a simple house for this poor family. The Chief decided to give them a small piece of land to be used temporarily. The Sisters gathered together some parents from the local parents’ organizations and together they began construction. In one week Mama Pendo and her children moved into the new house composed of three rooms: a small kitchen which divides the parent’s room from a sitting room (which converts into the bedroom of their son Chege at night) and a bedroom for the other children. Unfortunately, the family still does not have a toilet so they are using paid toilets or the common “flying toilets”-essentially plastic bags which collect human waste and are dumped into the river-and they shower in an improvised facility at the entrance of the house.

When AVSI staff visited Kware to meet Mama Pendo and her family for the first time in March 2006, Mama Pendo was almost crying because of happiness, saying that her gratitude is infinite. In the course of this year, the family’s situation has improved. Mama Pendo cares for two cows and three calves, donated by AVSI to the Mission of religious sisters, and her small income helps her to meet her family’s needs. As an active member of a parents’ group, Mama Pendo is always ready to assist needy families as the Sisters did for her. The need to be met in these places is endless but we should not forget that although it seems like just one drop in the ocean, this help has created a linkage and the possibility of a better life for a human being.