The Kenya Red Cross JKUAT Chapter has achieved another milestone in its noble cause of alleviating human suffering and poverty. On Saturday 2nd April 2016, the Chapter successfully forged a working partnership agreement with their long term partner Kijiji Cha Upendo Children Project based in Kibera.
This partnership was driven by the vision of empowering the young orphans and vulnerable Children through feeding and mentoring them to become successful and responsible citizens in future hence underscoring the Kenya Red Cross society’s main agenda of alleviating human suffering and poverty.
The partnership agreement outlays various roles that the two parties will play which includes putting- up a 10,000 liters drinking water tank in Kibera in the near future. The mega water tank will see the orphans and vulnerable children accessing clean water for drinking and domestic use. The Chapter members will also be offering mentorship talks to the children to empower them academically, socially and economically. This will be achieved through active involvement of the Red Cross University Youth Volunteers in giving the mentorship talks and business training skills to the guardians and funds contribution from both parties. The funds will be generated through various funds generating initiatives such as Car wash exercise.
Speaking on behalf of the Kijiji Cha Upendo community Mr. Andrew Obara, the administrator confirmed that the community was happy and ready to work on this move since it will go a long way in uplifting the lives of the young and vulnerable children in Kibera slums. Being a mutual partnership agreement the two parties came up with practical viable policies that when implemented effectively they will achieve a lot as far as giving back to the community is concerned.
Some of the initiatives that had already been suggested earlier before for instance the bicycle ride campaign to create awareness and raise funds for the charity cause will be implemented as well upon availability of the required resources. This partnership has come at an opportune moment when the Chapter has been proactive on ground in its humanitarian work within Kiambu and its neighboring county Nairobi.
It has been doing a lot of community services including training members as first aid service providers for emergency cases within and outside the university, organizing blood donation drive exercise in conjunction with the Blood Link Foundation, Kenya Blood Transfusion Centre, Pledge 25 Kenya and the Kenyatta National Hospital. Among all these activities the Children home visit is the most admired activity by majority of the students at the university whereby it attracts even non members and other Clubs and societies i.e. the Rotaract Club hence joining us and making the cause more lively. Due to these and many other viable initiatives the chapter was ranked as the most active chapter by The Kenya Red Cross office-Thika branch in July 2013 and stand as one of the most proactive Chapter nationally.
The Chapter is open to collaboration with other like minded individual, groups and organization; because we believe if we work together cooperatively we will be able to reach out to a bigger population of the needy children hence having a big impact to the society, having been working hand in hand with the Mount Kenya University, Gretsa, Nairobi Institute of Business Studies (NIBS) and the Kenyatta University Red Cross Chapters in rolling out its humanitarian initiatives.
By working with vigor and compassion in our noble cause as one people with a common vision we will eventually empower the children fully thus make them live their dream life. As Nelson Mandela once said
“A fundamental concern for others in our individual and community lives would go a long way in making the world the better place we so passionately dreamt of”
Posted by Alex Gandi
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