Project title:

SOLOLO

and Obbijtu Children’s Home

Intervention of social promotion and development for underage and adolescent at-risk orphans in Sololo, Kenya

 

 

Country and location:                       Sololo District, Kenya   

Estimated duration:                         

Promoting organisation:                   Associazione Mondeco Onlus (Muggiò – MI, Italy)

Local counterpart:                          CIPAD – Cultural Information Pastoral Development

Address:                                            Sololo

Legal Representative:                     Gufu G. Guyo

Legal status:                                     The Cultural Information Pastoralist Development (CIPAD) is a Community Based Organization (CBO), registered by Kenyan law.

 

The responsibilities and obligations of the counterpart are the ones set out in the agreement signed on 7th May 2005 with CCM. The end-of-project handover provides that the counterpart takes responsibility for the services and that the handover shall be performed under such terms and conditions as will safeguard the social and educational purposes of the intervention.

 

 

 

·        Organisations involved:                               Government of Kenya:

§      National Council for Children’s Services

§      District Commissioner Sololo District

§      Children’s Officer Moyale

§      District Development Officer Moyale

§      Division Officer Obbu – Uran

§      Sololo Senior Chief

§      Public Health Officer Obbu-Uran

§      Community Elders

 

Other organisations involved:

Apart from local and district authorities, the project aims at actively involving the Women’s Groups and Youth Groups in the Divisions concerned and duly registered with the Ministry of Culture of the Government of Kenya. Twenty-one associations have been present in the area since the late 1980s.  Some of them focus their activities on the educational area, youth training, children’s rights, cultural promotion; others work in the area of breeding and selling cattle, farming, production of traditional bricks.

The local health structure, formed of government clinics, the District Hospital of Moyale and the Sololo Catholic Mission Hospital, will be involved in looking after children who need medical attention, including the children who have resulted positive in the voluntarily HIV/AIDS screening.

 

 

 

 

Regional context

 

Kenya is categorised as a low income country.

The per capita gross domestic product is 1600 USD (388 Euro).

The zone affected by this project is located in the Obbu-Uran Division, one of the four Divisions of the Moyale District. The District lies in the Eastern Province in the North of Kenya. The territory of the Moyale District is arid and semi arid land and in the North features the Ethiopian Highlands at about 700 m/asl and in the South the arid plains at about 550 m/asl. The temperature ranges from 16° to 45° and the warmest season is between September and March. The Moyale District population is mainly Borana.  The Borana are herdsmen who live in the land on the border between Kenya and Ethiopia. Approximately 100,000 people live in the arid northern Kenyan area and 200,000 in Southern Ethiopia. The economy of the Moyale District is based on cattle breeding. There is no organised trade system. The cattle sold on the Moyale market have a different value based on their state of health and therefore on the condition of the pastures. After the fall of the Menghistu regime in Ethiopia, in January 1999, the borders were closed, with grave consequences. One of these was the blocked access to the many water sources and pastures that the herds from Kenya used during periods of drought. The life span in Kenya in 2005 was 49 ½ years for men and almost 48 for women. According to a projection of the Kenyan Ministry of Health, in 2005, AIDS resulted in more than 2 million orphans in the whole country. According to some predictions, in 2010 this number could rise to 2.3 million, so 20% of the total number of children in the country. The estimated number of orphans in the Moyale District is 1400. The estimated number of orphans in the city of Sololo alone is 200 in the next two years. In the urban area of Sololo, HIV/AIDS-positive underage orphans is one of the most urgent and serious problems. The children live in poor conditions, without resources due to the disintegration of the family caused by HIV/AIDS related deaths of one or both parents. These underage orphans are often denuded of their rights, have a high health and abandonment risk and antisocial behaviour with resulting problems for the community. In remote and isolated areas like Sololo, the traditional customs are still very much to the fore and respected, and according to this the family of a living brother of the deceased is responsible for their family. If there is no living brother, the grandmother takes care of her grandchildren. This model guarantees complete protection for the orphans. In practice, the traditional system of “circulating children, a de facto family fostering arrangement, is a heartfelt form of assistance existing in the society system in Kenya. Unfortunately, in a context, like Sololo, of extreme poverty this traditional system of aid for the orphans will not be able to handle the exponentially increasing number that will predictably continue to rise over the next few years. Furthermore, in recent decades, the traditional family model has also undergone changes caused by the impact of the modern western and Islamic lifestyle. Apart from the social and economic changes, the stability of values and traditional models are also under discussion. The traditional extended and polygamist family is being replaced by the concept of a monogamous and single-parent family unit, something that was in the past completely extraneous to the local culture. The bonds inside the clans are becoming weaker and this cultural conflict between past and present has a negative effective, causing problems in terms of assistance for children, who are the most vulnerable group threatened by these changes and imbalances.

In 2001, the Government of Kenya approved a  new law for underage children, the Kenya Children Act, in accordance with the 1989 New York Convention on Children’s Rights. The Government undertakes responsibility to assure the survival, care and development of children with problems through public structures designated for their care. Unfortunately, at the planning and operative level, a lack of resources means these interventions are mainly concentrated in urban areas (Children Act, section 4). In the area of Sololo, the actions of the government offices responsible for children’s policies are more or less nonexistent. The intervention policies of the Kenyan Government include the involvement of other institutions like NGOs, the local community and others, facilitating the search for and application of solutions for children in need of protection and care. To come up with a solution to the problem of underage orphans or children at risk, the local and district authorities in Sololo, together with the representatives of the elders and government administrators stressed the need for an intervention that excludes more or less standardized institutional solutions, which would be very different from the traditional Borana lifestyle. They request solutions that are in line with their tradition, where underage orphans are part of an extended family system.

So, the Kenyan law aims at assuring that these children are reintegrated into the local community and favours their inclusion in a replacement family group. This project attempts to protect the specific Borana culture by not imposing models extraneous to the local culture. In particular, the project is inspired by the traditional Borana lifestyle which up to today has been conducted in the nomad village called Yaa, where a group of children selected from the different clans as possible the future leaders of the Borana Gada system, live together under the care of the elders – tutors, learning the Borana history and its traditional usages and customs. (see: “I Borana” by Marco Bassi – publisher Franco Angeli,)


 

Project:                                                                                                                                         Sololo Project - Obbijtu Children’s Home

 

Origins of the initiative

 

This intervention has arisen to fill a gap in the interventions specifically targeting underage and vulnerable orphans in the area of Sololo (and throughout Northern Kenya), and aims to prevent the “street children” phenomenon that has already become widespread in nearby townships (Moyale and Marsabit).

The project responds to an express request made in 2004 to Dr. Bollini, member of CCM and present in Sololo as Project Manager by the people of Sololo, through the Senior Chief Galma Dabasso and fifty members of the Committee of Elders of Sololo, together with representatives from the Women’s and Youth groups. 

On 12th April 2005, with the authorisation of the government, the Committee of Elders voted to assign land to build the Obbijtu Children’s Home, a village to house the coordination centre for the whole project and some residential buildings for abandoned children.  Construction began on 1st August 2006.

 

General objective:

 

The general objective of this project is to improve the living conditions of underage and/or vulnerable orphans, particularly children whose parents died from HIV/AIDS, thus assuring the right the underage orphan to have a family.

 

Specific objectives:

 

The specific objective is to assure that the basic needs of orphaned and vulnerable children such as nutrition, healthcare, primary education are met within and by working with their natural families (extended family), screening their physical and psychological growth and, where necessary, housing them (at first no more than 20 children) in the Obbijtu Children’s Home, an open structure integrated into the local community and culture.

 

 

Problems to solve

During the needs identification phase, the following problems appeared and need solution:

 

Although this project does not claim top solve all the problems that arose during the needs-identification study (high level of poverty in Sololo, propagation of the HIV/AIDS virus, single mothers etc…), it can respond to some of the priorities identified through assistance of the orphaned and vulnerable children and families who take care of them, day care or residential care for children in the Obbijtu Children’s Home and training/awareness relating to children’s problems and rights for the families and staff of the Obbijtu Children’s Home.

 

The levels of intervention include:

 

a)      care and assistance for as many orphaned or vulnerable children between 0 and 12 years old as possible in their extended or in any case foster families;

b)      the completion of a residential “village” (Obbijtu Children’s Home), similar to the other nineteen villages composing the present township of Sololo, to house a limited number of children for whom homecare is impossible.

c)      offer of individual healthcare and psychological support for each orphaned and/or vulnerable child;

d)      training of staff involved in the project.

The strategy and methods used to implement the intervention involve each action being realised through partnerships with different local partners already working in similar fields promoting children’s rights and in particular, with its counterpart C.I.PA.D.  (Cultural Information Pastoral Development), which will coordinate the project activities to promote sustainability at the conclusion of the programme.

 

Beneficiaries

 

Direct beneficiaries

·        Orphaned and vulnerable children in Sololo (Obbu – Uran Divisions) between 0 and 12 years old who have no suitable physical and moral care due to the indigent status of the families or for social and personal reasons.

 

Indirect beneficiaries of the project are:

·        Families who care for the children who will be supported by the Project, in fulfilling their duties of care, custody and education of the children;

·        the local community, through training and employment of local workers in the project;

·        The local healthcare structure – the hospital of Sololo and government clinics – will benefit from the arrangements made for the healthcare of children involved in the project;

·        The local primary school, which will enjoy the addition of project staff for the education of some children from the more vulnerable and disadvantaged categories, also from the educational point of view who live in the new village.

·        The project also offers new job opportunities for the local population for the building and upkeep of the new village.


 

STRATEGIES OF INTERVENTION:

 

 

Phase one:

 

Attention to orphaned and vulnerable children in families who take them in

 

The Sololo Project adheres to the UNICEF guidelines set out in the document “Looking after children suffering from HIV and AIDS”:

 

Losing both parents to AIDS has lead to millions of orphans and other children live with sick or dying family members. The profound trauma of losing one or both parents has devastating long-term implications, not only for the wellbeing and growth of the child but also for the stability of some communities.

Children who have lost parents to this pandemic need PROLONGED CARE to recover their physical and emotional wellness and to fully realised their potential. Children cannot wait, they cannot postpone the future. They need immediate attention, healthcare, education and protection, as well as the opportunity to play and participate in family life.

 

In October 2005 a new initiative (UNICE and UNAIDS) was launched: “Unite for Children, Unite against AIDS” as a global Call to Action with four goals (the four Ps):

 

1.      prevent infection among adolescents and young people

2.      prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission

3.      provide paediatric treatment for HIV-positive children 

4.      protect and support orphans and children affected by HIV and AIDS

 

The campaign supports the message to make a real difference in the lives and life chances of children, FOCUSING ON ALL FOUR AREAS.

 

The solutions of caring for these children must keep them in a supportive and helpful family setting that is as close to possible as their original family. This means KEEPING PARENTS ALIVE and SELF-SUFFICIENT AS LONG AS POSSIBLE; KEEPING SIBLINGS TOGETHER, or as close to each other as possible; FAVOURING POSITIVE WELCOME IN THE EXTENDED FAMILY and ENABLING CHILDREN TO REMAIN THE COMMUNITY THEY PERCEIVE AS HOME.

 

The MAIN OBJECTIVE of the Sololo project will be to care for local children in order to keep them as far as possible in their own social and natural context (the Borana extended family that can give the needy and abandoned child care and attention again), and only in very few extreme cases, where it is impossible for the child to develop in a family setting, will residential or day care facilities in the Obbijtu Children’s Home be offered.

 

A trained technical team formed of staff with skills in the social care field and a nurse from CCM, will census the families who are looking after these children, assisting each of them through:

 

 

 

 

Phase two:

 

Opening the Obbijtu Children’s Home

 

 

Opening the Obbijtu Children’s Home village that can support the following functions:

1)     resource centre for the problems of children in the Sololo area

2)      management ganglion of the project

3)     day hospitality for children in the project

4)     hospitality for children in total state of moral and material abandon, who it is not possible to place with a traditional family, for no more than 20 children.

The Village has been constructed to guarantee continuity and adherence to the usages and customs of the Borana and has been built to improve health conditions and duration offered by both traditional buildings and by the new construction models adopted recently in Sololo.

An essential condition of the project is for the building activities, décor and every activity performed within the Project to give priority to the residential population both in terms of local business as well as individual jobs.

 

The Village is formed of two living units that can host 10 children for each home. Each home is run by a “mother”, who is the emotional and social point of reference for the children staying their, with the assistance of at least two “aunties”, who have excellent pedagogical skills, who work in managing the project in the territory and at the same time support the “mother” in the education of the children entrusted to their care.

The “Father of the Village” who will live with his family in his own compound in the Obijitu Village will supervise the project and the management of the hospitality of the children.

By looking after the management aspects of the project, the father becomes the male father-figure for the children staying in the Village and in particular handles their integration into the traditional culture of the Borana community, so that the children are socially integrated.

 

Each compound is formed of a home with two rooms for the children to sleep in and one for the mother, an outside kitchen in Borana style, a washroom/bathroom for personal hygiene, a latrine and a kitchen garden.

The Village promotes strengthening the traditional self-sustaining culture, giving each compound a kitchen garden and encouraging projects to develop the traditional herding activity, whose presence is essential to be truly rooted in the Borana culture.

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The project undertakes to develop actions that counteract the causes of abandonment of children  (sexual exploitation of girls, disintegration of families, spread of HIV etc…) at their source. To handle the cases of abandon, there is a possibility that another three compounds will be added to these two in the Village, and in the future, similar spaces distributed throughout the 19 villages that now form the township of Sololo. The final decision is up to the Elders of Sololo and to the father of the Village and will take place in  light of the experience matured, taking into account the aspects links to problems relating to the children fitting into the community and to economic sustainability of the project. Excessive physical growth of the new village could expose it to the risk of conditioning the life of the township rather than managing to be encompassed by it.

 

Thanks to its modular concept, the project can be repeated in the future in the Moyale district, to reach the number of abandoned children who it will be necessary to look after from time to time.

 

In detail, each “home-family-traditional” compound built on about two and a half hectares, fenced in by local bushes, is composed as follows:

 

-          A rectangular house of 5 m x 12 m to be used ad dormitory, completely furnished and equipped, divided into three rooms, 4 m x 5 m each, with veranda of  2.5 m x 12 m. It is built on load-bearing concrete pillars that hold up the metal sheet roofing – to collect rainwater – and curtain wall made from sand-concrete inside and outside plaster, on double wire spread between the columns. 

The home have been constructed by a local builder (Mt.  Abo Contractors) who proved the feasibility of this technology for the building skills of the local labour.

 

-          A 5000-litre tank to collect the rainwater from the roof on the house and veranda.

 

-          A building to be used for cooking, which looks similar to the traditional huts (round shape made using mud-coated wood and leafy bough roofs). This 4 m diameter building will also be built using the technology above, but it will be covered with grass, woven in the local tradition.

-                      A similar construction has been built for the washroom and showers.

-                      Another similar-looking structure has been built to contain the latrines, prepared for biogas collection.

 

-                      A kitchen garden of approximately 1 hectare, with the necessary tools to cultivate it and possibly fenced-in area to keep animals to buy with pastoral development projects.

 

-                The house for the “father of the village” includes: kitchen, bathroom, dining room and four bedrooms, traditional outside kitchen and outside latrine.

                 

-                The guest home that accommodates expatriate staff and consultants is composed of a kitchen, dining room and five bedrooms with bathroom.

 

Apart from the existing storehouse and generator room, it is planned to construct a multipurpose/office building in the future.

 

 

 

The pastoral development project involves the Village being supplied with a small herd of animals under the care of the “Mothers” and including at least two donkeys, four cows, 10 goats, poultry to provide milk, eggs and meat for the children and to root them in the traditional pastoral society.

Other animals will be given to the families of origin of abandoned children so as to keep a tangible link between the child and the extended family. The Elders and the local law will guarantee protection of the animals owned by the children.

 

In a subsequent phase, the project considers forming a community herd, entrusted to the father of the Village and composed of five head of cattle and ten camels for each inhabited compound.

The community herd entrusted to the father, together with the herd entrusted to the Mothers, form the basic pastoral system to reproduce the two herds that traditionally compose the “pastoral unit” of the Boarana village: the “milking herd”, kept near the village, and the “breeding herd” taken to distant pastures.


 

 

a)      Identification of personnel to employ in the Sololo project and in the Obbijtu Children’s Home to care for children who need care and protection

 

 

In the project (Sololo Project and Obbijtu Children’s Home) the following staff are considered:

 

-          1 Father of the Village, resident inside and project supervisor, father-figure for the children housed in the village;

-          1  Uncle of the village, not resident in the village, managing homecare and assisting the father in aspects relating to education of the children housed in the Village;

-          2 “Mothers”, residents in the Village, responsible for the care of resident children;

-          2 “Aunties”, not resident in the Village, with social and educational training, for the management of homecare and daytime hospitality and support for the Mothers in the educational/school/play field;

-          4 watchmen, with additional tasks to look after the Village compounds (grass cutting, fence maintenance;

-          Other personnel for related projects (pastors) in a number to determine, compatible with the degree of economic sustainability of the Project.

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The management organisation, CIPAD, after consulting with the Sololo Elders Committee and the Main Donor (now CCM, in the future Mondeco) will select the father of the Village.

The Father will report on his work to CIPAD, which will adopt disciplinary sanctions where necessary, adhering to the principle of proportionality and gradualism of the sanction, which can arrive at being removed from the position, but which must always occur within a just disciplinary system.

CIPAD adopts sanctions by its own initiative or on request of the Main Donor, which acts following reports it receives from its own or external control and supervision bodies.

 

 

The “Uncle” of the village will be chosen by the managing organisation, in agreement with the Father of the Village and after consulting with the Committee of Elders and with the Main Donor.

He reports his work to the Father of the Village. 

 

The “Mothers” are chosen by the Father of the Village, after consulting with the Elders.

The “Aunties” are chosen by CIPAD, after consulting with the Father and the Mothers of the Village.

 

The watchmen and personnel for subsequent projects (herdsmen…), will be selected by the Father of the Village.

 

The duties of each figure employed in the Project will be defined by the CIPAD together with the Main Donor.

 

The working relationships between the management organisation (CIPAD) and the selected personnel will be governed by the laws of Kenya, and shall involve compliance with the current social security, healthcare and workplace safety regulations. Membership of unions may not be prohibited.

 

 

 

b) Training of staff to employ in the Sololo Project

 

 

The Project includes training courses for staff.

Training modules will be held before the start of day and residential hospitality in the Village, and will be followed up by different refresher courses for each job description.

A common training day for all the staff involved in the project will be held once a year.

 

The “mothers” selected will attend a three-month training course involving at least two months on-the-job training in a suitable centre.

 

Ongoing training will involve the staff in at least two months a year, lasting at least three days.

 

Other training and follow-up will take place together with the monitoring and evaluation missions organised by the Main Donor.

 

Courses will be held by external consultants with knowledge of the Borana culture.

 

Issues covered in the courses to prepare the mothers to care for and protect the children will be based on the principles of the Kenya Children’s Act (Part III, section 23) and will be:

·        personal hygiene;

 

Particular importance will be placed on the issue of HIV/AIDS prevention and sexual abuse.

 

Training of the “watchmen-maintenance men” and of the “herdsmen” involves, in addition, aspects tied to the technologies and systems used in the Village.

 

 

c)  Developing an individual programme of psychological and sanitary support for each child admitted to the Project

 

 

When admitted to the Project, each child will be screened and interviewed to assess their specific psychological needs. The results are recorded on a personal clinical chart that includes the “individual sanitary and training-educational care plan”.

Sanitary programme

The medical assessment will be performed by a doctor/nurse, an expatriated consultant, who will write up a clinical chart for each child and will perform an initial sanitary screening to check the presence of diseases or HIV/AIDS.

 

The project staff will submit to a health check-up when they are employed, to be repeated every six months.

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The medical consultant will also provide theoretical and practical First Aid training to the adults employed in the Project.

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The Project guarantees access of the children involved in its activities to healthcare available at the Sololo Mission Hospital and local government clinics.

 Psychological programme

All the psychological activity will be managed by the Uncle and the Aunties under the supervision of external psychologists who are specialists in working with orphaned and vulnerable children.

The consultant psychologist will hold individual interviews assisted by the project staff (Uncle and Aunties), to detect the specific needs of the children, their relationships with the extended or foster family or, with the Father and Mother of the Village.

The consultant psychologist, assisted by Uncle/Aunties, will then draw up an individual plan to support each child.

One particular activity of the consultant psychologist will consist of individual and group meetings to give psychological support and help children overcome any traumas they suffered through sexual abuse, physical violence, as well as other emotional trauma caused by abandonment, death etc…

The consultant psychologist will handle specific update and investigations for Uncle and Aunties in the project as well as holding workshops for the Father/Mothers of the Village, which will serve to increase the parenting skills of the adults who are entrusted with the care of the children, to make them protagonists of the educational work.

The consultant psychologist will visit the site normally every four months and stay for about ten days.

 

Health chart

A “health chart” containing the records and data relating to each child’s physical and psychological condition will be formulated and constantly updated for each child admitted to the village. This data will be used to draw up a personal, targeted “care-training-educational plan” that fully integrates the “Child placement plan” as provided in the Children (Charitable Children’s Institution’s) Regulations.

 

 

 

Economic and financial sustainability

 

Project running costs are initially covered solely by donations from the private sector, which will be added to contributions from trusts and public organisations.

Costs for food in the Obbijtu Children’s Home will gradually diminish thanks to the contributions from the kitchen gardens and the milking herd – principle of self-sustenance and food independence.

 

By 2011, a detailed strategy to guarantee sustainability of the project will be drafted.

 

Some initiatives have been taken into consideration to date:

·        a guest structure to include Sololo in the international circuits of eco-friendly and responsible tourism”-

·         use biological waste of the guests in the Obbijtu Children’s Home and the animals to produce biogas.