1. Training of Trainers

Education and access to means of economic emancipation are key equity issues. Women need access to credit and access to skills to improve their marketability. Micro-finance schemes are a great way to assist women who have proven time and again to be very good at debt repayment. Lack of opportunity accounts for the large number of women categorized as living in extreme poverty conditions. Since 2003 Kianda Foundation has been running a Training of Trainers project in three villages- Ngong, Riara and Ngarariga, in which the women are:

• first taught business skills;

• given start-up capital for a business of their choice;

• followed-up to help them cope with the ups and downs of a business;

• finally, some are linked to a micro-finance institution where they can obtain micro-finance help to advance their businesses.

This project has been made possible with the help of the European Union, the Austrian Government and ICEP -Institut zur Cooperation bei Entwicklungs-Projekten (an Austrian NGO).

In order to run the project, Kianda Foundation invites the participation of volunteer university students from among those who attend activities organised in Fanusi Study Centre.

Applicants are interviewed and those selected are trained for one week on topics such as community development, communication skills, entrepreneurship, etc. in an environment of team building. With this preparation, the students are able to go out and train women in business skills to enable them to start and successfully run a business. The course, taught in half-day sessions ( some women attend in the morning and others in the afternoon) lasts a month and is delivered in vernacular, tailoring it to their needs as most of the women are casual labourers, with little formal education.

The central part of the course is the plan each woman makes for her own micro-business. She draws it up and is helped to make it viable. In some cases they are encouraged to change their plan to something more practical. Once a week, for six months, the university students make visits to monitor the businesses and to advise the women. Most of them are flourishing with over 80% of the women having more than than doubled their monthly income.

The human development of the participants is an important part of the training given. They are helped to realize the importance of interacting well with other members of the community and developing the corresponding virtues. Together with this, they also receive classes in hygiene, good grooming, nutrition, etc. Resource persons give talks on family-related issues and laws governing women and property.

2. Rural Projects

Kianda Foundation not only encourages social awareness in Kenyan university students at Fanusi but also in their counterparts from universities abroad by inviting them to to participate in rural projects during the holidays. For more than two decades students from Canada, Germany, England, Spain, France and Italy among others have joined girls from local universities in order to work on projects such as, clinics, where they lend a hand and donate equipment and drugs; primary schools, painting and refurbishing the school buildings as well as assisting with school tuition and providing text books; volunteering at childrens' homes, etc. The projects run for 3 to 4 weeks.

Through these projects nursery schools were set up in the villages of Maramba and Gatina. These also serve as day care centres where mothers can leave their children when they go to pick tea.

The projects make a lasting impression on the students, apart from the benefit they derive from relating with one another. Many of the foreigners continue to help the project with funds from their families and friends. For example, some pay for a milk programme with funds donated by European school children. The Kenyans also retain a permanent concern for the less privileged. Some return the following year and encourage their friends to participate.

3. Kimlea Clinic

The villagers around Kimlea Girls' Training Centre live at subsistence level and cannot afford to visit a doctor, still less buy medicines. As a result, minor ailments are untreated and easily end up becoming serious. The Principal of Kimlea Centre, after being called in to rescue a 3 year old who had been burned on the head with hot water, realized the villagers' need for regular medical attention. She enlisted the help of medical students from Fanusi Study Centre and with funds provided by "Harambee 2002" they set up what was called the Kisima Mobile Clinic. Clinics were held at the Centre once a month, with the help of several doctors and senior medical students who volunteered their services as well as donations of medicines from pharmaceutical companies. The doctors dealt with the routine cases and referred more serious cases to the Kenyatta National Hospital.

A permanent Clinic has just been built at Kimlea, with funds provided by the Government of Navarre and Fundación Rode (Spain). The villagers watched the progress of the building with great interest and enthusiasm. It offers regular medical services to the community with about 80 patients daily.

4. Jiko Project

A jiko is a local charcoal burner made of metal and lined with clay. The clay lining is important as it conserves heat, thus reducing costs as less charcoal is used. The aim of this project was to encourage the women to replace the '3 cooking stones' used for cooking in the villages,with a jiko. The traditional method meant that women carry firewood on their backs for long distances and apart from the exhaustion, fire and burn accidents occurred frequently. The jiko in addition to being safe and cheap can also be used for baking, unlike the 3 stones.

The beneficiaries of the project were women in the tea picking villages around Kimlea Training Centre. It was funded by GORTA, an Irish NGO and ICU (an Italian NGO). The women were trained on how to use and maintain the equipment. They were also given cookery classes in which they were shown how to bake items using the jiko oven. The women paid a small fee to participate in the project. At the end of the course, each participant was given a jiko for cooking at home and for income generating activities. Many of them now cook for the tea plantation workers and other neighbours.