KCC Unveiled – An Introduction

Background

Kenya Children Centres (KCC) has been supporting disadvantaged children in Kenya for over 20 years.  Through our website, we inform visitors about the work that we do and thought that some additional information would help you understand the need for the work we support.

We invite you to join us on a journey through the complexities and contradictions of Kenya, through the challenges faced by the most impoverished of Kenyans, and through the services that we deliver, to see how your kind donations improve the lives, and prospects, of over 2,000 Kenyan babies and children.

Welcome to ‘KCC Unveiled’, a blog where each story is a call to action and an opportunity to share hope for the future.

Kenya in Context

Kenya is a country of huge contrasts.  Whilst modern industries such as Telecommunication and Finance account for over 60% of the economy, there are still 75% of the workforce working in agriculture and living on less than $2 a day.  Whilst tourism showcases the diversity in landscape and wildlife, Kenya also has one of the largest slums in the World.  Kibera, near Nairobi, is home to over 250,000 people, although some put the figure closer to a staggering 1.2 million.

More than half of Kenyans live in poverty.  A significant percentage regularly starve or rely on food aid.  Child labour is common, as is prostitution, rape, and defilement.

But the Kenyan Government is committed to change, specifically having published a development program, Kenya 2030, which aims to raise the average standard of living to ‘middle income’ by 2030.  They have also published clear policies, such as through the Children Act of 2022, setting out how specific legislation will support this vision.  The Children Act sets out policies to raise the welfare of children, including in areas such as health and education, and promotes the eradication of orphanages by 2032.

The Government is looking to partner with Children’s Charitable Institutions (CCI, a type of NGO in Kenya), to align their work with the Children Act and to focus on prevention rather than picking up the pieces.

Unfortunately, the funding to implement the policies within the Children Act is slow to trickle down to the ‘coalface’, and there remains a heavy reliance on charities to support the children.

Kenya Children Centres

Kenya Children Centres (KCC) is one such charity.  Originally founded in 2000, KCC created and funded Orphan Children’s Centre (OCC) in Thika, near Nairobi, as a CCI.  As the implications of Vision 2030 and the requirements of the Children Act have become clearer, OCC (now renamed Kujali Children’s Centre, Kujali) has shifted its focus away from being an orphanage and is adapting to the changes that the Government is promoting.  Kujali is now delivering seven specific Child Welfare Programmes.

The seven services are:

Catching the children falling through the cracks:

1. Caring for babies in our Abandoned Baby Unit
2. Supporting and developing teenage mothers
3. Providing short-term residential care

Preventing issues from arising:

4. Feeding slum school children
5. Delivering reproductive health and welfare counselling
6. Funding education and

Reintegration

7. Returning babies and children to loving families and to their communities.

Kujali is 100% funded by KCC.  It works closely with the Children’s Office and the court system.  Children are only placed with Kujali through a Court Order.  The care that we need to give, and the duration of that care, is set out by the Children’s Office and the court.

Future blogs will give more details as to the need and approach of each aspect of the services that we support in Kujali, as well as some specifics on the services themselves.  We hope that you find them informative, encouraging, and thought-provoking.