CHRISTIAN
CHILDREN'S FUND
(CCF-Kenya)
"Giving Children Hope and a Future"
Oliva
Kantai and Esther Wamai
About
the Fund
Christian Children's Fund (CCF) is a child development agency, which
for over 60 years has been working towards promoting the well being
of children from needy communities in over 30 countries. CCF works
in Latin America, Asia and Africa. In Africa, the organization works
in West Africa, South Africa and East Africa. The East African countries
where CCF works are Uganda, Ethiopia and Kenya.
CCF
Kenya
CCF-Kenya has been in operation in the country for close to 3 decades,
with a mission to promoting growth and the well being of children
by empowering families and communities to utilize available resources
and opportunities for sustained benefits. Currently, CCF-Kenya supports
43,000 enrolled children, and impacts an additional 200,000 children
through 48 community based projects located in 30 districts in the
country. CCF-Kenya has two core programs - Health and Education
- which have various components.
Health
Program Components include: morbidity control, food security, micro
enterprise development initiatives (MEDI), malaria, reproductive
health, HIV/AIDS, water and sanitation, nutrition, early childhood
development, and peace and conflict resolution
Education Program Components are: quality basic education, non formal
education, living values program and youth program
Strategies
for 2001-2004
The organization has placed itself to realize its vision through
key strategies as outlined below:
· Developing capacities of the target community, recognizing
that educating and empowering communities leads to sustainable development
· Designing programs to address the target community core
problems
· Collaborating, partnering and networking with pertinent
agencies, in order to share experiences and expand its knowledge
base through shared learning, thereby reducing duplication of resources
as well as building strong alliances for advocating for children's
rights
· Mobilizing additional resources and expanding CCF-Kenya's
reach to more needy children
· Enhancing human resource development.
CCF-Kenya
Nutrition Program
CCF nutrition program seeks to ensure well being of children and
their families through integration of health, food security, micro
enterprise initiatives, adequate dietary intake and proper care.
Malnutrition
rates in the country have been on the increase due to a poor performing
economy, unfavorable food policies, increasing levels of morbidity
especially malaria, pneumonia, diarrhoea, measles and HIV/AIDS,
and frequent droughts and floods. CCF-Kenya AIMES* (Annual Impact
Monitoring and Evaluation Systems) data for 2001 showed the underweight
rates among target underfives as 12%.
CCF-Kenya
has responded to the rising levels of malnutrition by implementing
both long- and short-term nutrition interventions targeted mainly
at vulnerable groups such as children 0-5 years, pregnant and lactating
women, HIV/AIDS infected and directly affected persons and adolescents.
CCF-Kenya currently has ten nutritionists working in all the 30
districts where CCF-Kenya is. Each of the 48 community-based projects
also have technical staff who coordinate the health and nutrition
activities.
The
activities/interventions in the integrated community-based nutrition
program include:
·
Carrying out studies to identify the health and nutrition needs
of the target community
·
Growth monitoring of underfives on a monthly basis by trained volunteer
parents. Growth monitoring is done using three indices: weight-for-age,
weight-for-height and height-for-age to determine underweight, wasting
and stunting rates.
·
Children who are identified as underweight or wasted (with more
than -2 standard deviation) are medically assessed and put on supplementary/therapeutic
feeding using locally available nutritious foods. The caregivers
of such children are counseled to tackle the underlying cause of
malnutrition.
·
Training of the target beneficiaries on health components that include:
maternal child health, nutrition, reproductive health, disease control
and management especially malaria, diarrhoea and pneumonia.
·
Training of parents/caregivers on good practices in early child
stimulation, development of early childhood development (ECD) play
and learning materials, and identification of child development
milestones using CCF child development guide.
·
Training of target families on appropriate food security initiatives
in crop and animal husbandry. Supporting families with food production
and animal husbandry inputs so that they can undertake agricultural
activities. The inputs include: dairy goats/cows/poultry, seeds,
farm implements and drip irrigation kits.
·
Training of the target beneficiaries on the identified micro enterprise
development initiatives especially in the area of book keeping and
resource management to ensure prudent utilization of resources and
profit making.
·
Supporting provision of health services to the targeted vulnerable
groups. In collaboration with the ministry of health facilities,
CCF-Kenya provides immunization to children and antenatal mothers
on a continuous basis and also supports screening, effective diagnosis,
management and treatment of malaria among other diseases. Quarterly
deworming is also carried out.
·
HIV/AIDS training and sensitization among target communities. This
is carried out through trained community behavior change promoters
and training of CCF-Project staff and volunteer parent representatives
in counseling. In collaboration with the MOH health facilities in
CCF project areas, voluntary counseling and testing is accessed
to willing community members. CCF projects also promote formation
of AIDS support groups and AIDS clubs (in schools and among youth),
and they also support home-based care (HBC) for HIV infected persons.
·
Micronutrient supplementation (especially Vitamin A and iron/folic)
is provided to identified vulnerable groups who include children
0-5 years, pregnant/lactating mothers and HIV infected persons.
·
Assessment of child development milestones of under-8-year old children
using CCF ECD assessment guide. Five development areas addressed
by the guide include: gross motor, fine motor, cognitive, social/emotional
and language.
·
Development and/or acquisition of IEC materials: CCF-Kenya has developed
a comprehensive nutrition manual which is utilized in all projects.
CCF projects also utilize acquired IEC materials such as FANTA nutritional
guidelines for people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWA) and Pathfinder
curriculum on home-based care for PLWA.
·
Monitoring and evaluation by project implementers. This is mainly
carried out by parent representatives in focus groups (which are
groups of 20-25 parents/caregivers/youth who are neighbors and meet
monthly for common activities) together with the technical personnel
using CCF AIMES. The information derived from this tool enables
all the project implementers to plan needed interventions to curb
identified problems.
Impact of Health and Nutrition Interventions
The
health and nutrition program has realized significant improvements
in the health and nutrition status of target community members.
This is demonstrated in the table below where key indicators have
been used (CCF-Kenya AIMES data)
| Health
Components |
1999 |
2000 |
2001 |
Safe
water access
Safe sanitary disposal
Immunization
TT Coverage
Malnutrition status
Infant mortality rate
Under 5 mortality rate
|
48%
Population: 16,050
56%
69%
73%
15%
36/1000
89/1000
|
50%
Population: 16,792
57%
73%
69%
23%
42/1000
88/1000
|
49%
Population: 18,033
57%
73%
73%
12%
35/1000
76/1000
|