IN KENYA
The Chincherini Foundation operates in Ukunda, a semirural village in Kwale County, near the renowned Diani beach, a tourist area but a very poor one. In a warm and comfortable family home complex managed directly by the foundation, 98 children coming from troubled backgrounds are housed, nurtured and cared for from infancy to adulthood, in all aspects of their personal growth. The children live in a familiar and safe environment, and grow together as siblings with a “mum” who takes care of them.
OUR APPROACH
The Chincherini Foundation operates with the purpose of ensuring children’s rights, following five main principles:- technical and cultural viability. The Foundation aims at respecting the local cultures and the environment;
- promotion of people’s participation, so as to ensure that the population itself is the master of its own destiny;
- promotion of people’s participation, so as to ensure that the population itself is the master of its own destiny;
- openness about the activities and the projects. The financial supporters can gain access of our every intervention;
- the accurate selection of the communities we help. They’re picked among the neediest ones, and we aim at giving them the greatest and the most enduring relief possible.
AREAS OF INTERVENTION
Diet and nutrition: an inadequate diet causes a delayed development both physical and psychological. Our interventions aim at ensuring that every child eat a healthy diet: we set up a dining hall, and training courses for the “mums” who prepare the children’s meals as volunteers. When the children are not at school, they help the adults grow maize, tomatoes, and spinach in the “shamba” (cultivated plot). Our food safety plans included the construction of a school canteen, where the “mums”, who attended specific training courses, volunteer as cooks.
Health:poverty, poor hygiene, lack of drinking water, hardship are the main sources of disease among the people supported and helped by the Foundation. In Kenya, the healthcare system is largely privatised. It is estimated that 70% of the population has no access to healthcare, while child mortality is still very high. The Foundations goal is to make sure that children are healthier and less vulnerable—that’s why they are monitored by local doctors, and once a year by an Italian medical team, which set up a dental practice complete with all the necessary equipment. The local ophthalmic consulting room has also been financially supported by the Foundation for several years.
Schooling: with a view to ensure that the children acquire knowledge to earn a living on their own, the Foundation invests a lot in school education. The reformed school system is such that only students with a very high grade point average gain access to the secondary school. State school does not guarantee a proper preparation, so the poorest children are penalised and denied the right to education. That’s why the Foundation started the primary school in 2001, thus ensuring that both the children in the family homes and those living in the village alike are given a sound preparation.
