OTONGLO ST ANNES SUPPORT GROUP:
ACTIVITY REPORT January 2009
Introduction:
Otonglo St Anne Support Group is a Self Help Group that was started in the year 2003 by 15 members
who had been faced with various challenges such as poor health, poverty, and illiteracy. The group was
later registered by the Ministry of Gender, Sports, Culture and Social Services in the year 2005 under
registration No S/H 10059.
This group carries out its activities a long the shores of Lake Victoria within Korando ‘A’ and Korando
‘B’ sub- locations of East Kisumu district, Nyanza Province, Kenya.
Group Objective:
 The group intends to reduce poverty among the poor members of this community through
initiation of Income Generating Activities.
 Carry out awareness creation and advocate for the reduction of HIV/AIDS as well as Supporting
the Widows and People Living with HIV/ AIDS.
Specific programmes:
Cereals and fish sales:
The group undertakes sales of cereals and fish as an economic activity to help members of the group
meet financial obligations.
Basket weaving and knitting:
This is one of the activities that supports some members because the sales proceeds is used to sustain the
relevant families and even support the other dependants including the OVCs.
Pottery and Rope making:
This is not only a source of income but provide an opportunity for older members to pass on the skills to
the young people for self-sustainability.
Farming and Poultry:
The group is engaged in farming activities to improve food security. This includes horticultural farming
where some members attend to their kitchen gardens for vegetable, tomatoes and onion production. The
pictures below show vegetables farming at Korando to support food security.
The vegetable farming at Korando community
Farming activities at Korando
OVC Support:
This is a programme that supports needy children including orphans and the identified vulnerable
children. Quite a number of needy children have benefited through support of their education needs
including buying of school uniform, books and paying of minimal tuition fee to enhance their education
standard.
The above photos show OVCs Health support from Korando (left) and Ujirani
Wema (right) at Family Health Option Kenya (FHOK).
Apart from education support, Widows and People Living with HIV/ Aids are supported through homebased care. Our group support Orphans and Vulnerable children through farming and weaving activities.
The group members weave baskets, ropes and mats. These are sold and the money received is mostly
used for feeding the orphans. Some of the members are also involved in pottery work and small scale
poultry farming. In this programme we have (DAP) Distance Adoption Programme Friends of Kenya
in Iceland have given us a lot of support by sponsoring 20 children in Korando. The money received
from them assist mostly in the feeding and payments of school levies.
In order to increase our income to support our activities, we also buy cereals such as maize and sell. The
profits received are therefore used to support our orphans basic needs mainly education, food and health
care. We also use part of it to support the widows and people living with HIV aids basic needs such as
bus fares to and from heath facilities. We have also some small-scale farming and most of the crops we
grow are vegetables, maize, and potatoes for food sustainability.
The group members are interested in expanding their income to support the Vulnerable. However, we
are faced with several challenges. Some of the challenges include inadequate financial resources to
increase the level of activities as well as water shortage. We managed to receive a donation of water
pump (WOFAK) women fighting aids in Kenya, however we do not have reliable water source since the
lake is far from our farming sites. It is the wish of the members that if we had a borehole, we would be
at a position of farming throughout the year. Currently we rely on rain.
HOME BASED CARE:
In this programme we do home visits on weekly basis. We identify a few homes to be visited within a
given period of time. We do counseling and refer those who need further assistance to health facilities
and also advice the need for post and antenatal clinics for young mothers and children vaccinations. We
also advocate for general cleanliness in order to avoid disease that can be a voided e.g. cholera. We have
community trained health workers who do this. We sell basic drugs within the community.
FEEDING AND SUPPORT TO ORPHANS & VULNARABLE CHILDREN:
This has been a good programme due to the environment and level of poverty within the community.
There are so many orphans and vulnerable children that have been left mostly as a result of HIV/ AIDS.
We have a feeding programme on daily basis for these children.
This has been successful with the help from Friends of Kenya in Iceland through Distance Adoption
Programme. In this programme we have a total of 67 registered children at the center and over 100
Orphans from 45 households being assisted by Young Women Christian Association Kisumu branch.
Out of them 20 are sponsored. Most of these children are Nursery and primary going
We currently have 4 children in secondary school this year.
We have a nursery school for age 6 and below at the center and provide school requirement e.g
uniforms for the most needy children
We have saving bank accounts for the children individually in collaboration
bank in Kisumu.
with A dok timo Catholic
SUPPORT FOR THE WIDOWS & PEOPLE LIVING WITH HIV/ AID
The widows have poultry project where one is given a total of eight (8) hens by the group to keep with
an intention of re giving another 8 also to another member after an interval of 3 to 4 months. We have
already given to 10 members. This project is assisted by Women Fighting Aids in Kenya Kisumu
branch. We also have medical support for PLWAS through WOFAK where they organize group therapy
meetings and have time to share with various groups. In this project they sell table clothes which they
make as an in come generating activity for their sustainability.
Conclusion:
Our activities are very successful and there is overwhelming community support, we continue
networking with partners such as WOFAK, Y.W.C.A, C.C.F, F.H.O.K, and Ministry of health among
other organizations. There is community ownership and therefore we for see the members of our selfhelp group sustaining the income generating activities already started. Increased support to expand our
work and be able to support all Orphans & Vulnerable children and widows within our area of coverage
will be highly welcomed.