How will our NGO DSIK start their activities in Bonde
We must begin with a low budget because of the unexpectedly long and difficult way to get an account for the non-profit organisation in Belgium. The lack of an account made the planned presentations of our NGO impossible.
Nevertheless, we expect soon to open an account in Belgium or Spain, which we can use (probably temporarily before we get the final one) to receive donations. The needs in Bonde are high.
The concrete planning of “Durable Sustainable Initiatives, Kenya” for BONDE
Education
We have selected about 15 children at this moment. This we did with the help of the schools and local administration. Besides Maurine, our CEO will unexpectedly visit all of them. This is to confirm we support the most needed.
Of course, the needs in Bonde are many times higher. We hope every term to be able to support more children in need.
The new school year starts at the beginning of January 2025.
Even for the selected children, we do not have the money yet. But we hope to get it in time.
Besides paying the school fees, we look into the situation at their homes. Are their mud houses dry? Have they windows, a door, electricity. Are the mud walls of the house in good condition?
If needed, we improve the defects. We will buy materials if necessary and loan the tools they need. But they have to do the work themselves with the help of their neighbors/friends.
All this is important for the child to be able to study in a more normal situation.
Water
Water is in Bonde, as in 80% of Kenya, a big problem. Clean water is rare. The women and children provide their households with water. A time-consuming job.
Despite almost 8 months of regular rain, most often at night, Kenyans do not have the habit of collecting rainwater properly. Gutters at their undulated iron sheets roofs seldom are there. Together, we will attach plastic gutters on their roofs and use a pipe to divert the rainwater to a barrel with a lid. This rainwater will be much cleaner than the water of the seasonal rivers.
In time, we will also put rainwater catchers mainly to use for irrigation at the piece of land where they grow their vegetables. But in need, they will also use the water for their households.
Through this irrigation system, working on a battery of 9V, they will have an extra harvest in the dry season. Provide them with extra food and will give them more money by selling the vegetables they do not need for their family. Extra money to probably pay the school fees by themselves.
When enough donations we will even drill for water, build a water tower, and put taps at their houses and/or at crucial places that are easy to reach for people living in more remote areas of Bonde.
Food
Besides, already before we have rainwater catchers and irrigation systems in place, we will work together to apply the African way of growing vegetables, maize, and grains …. a method even used in arid places. We will use the method of Zai pits. This prevents erosion of their land and teaches them to grow 100% organic food.
Their harvest will double once they apply this African system properly.
This will help the development of the community and create a stable, durable life for them.
Other actions
- Learning the women to knit and crochet.
- Organise teaching parents/adults to read and write if they cannot do it now. Some teachers in the schools can do it. We pay them for the extra hours.
- Giving extra lessons in English to teenagers to master the language better. By school teachers too.
- Learning them to preserve food for a long time in jars. Also, make jam and preserve it.
- Help to start small businesses. E.g., cleaning water tanks.
- Giving sexual education in the schools.
- Explaining birth control and the reasons why to families and adults.
- Our CEO Maurine has contacted the bank to discuss the possibility of “setting up saving accounts with a goal” for the people of Bonde.
Special needs for handicapped
- Until now, we have a Cerebral Palsy teenager in Bonde who is now shuffling/crawling on the ground which is a disaster for his clothes. We will put leather in the critical places on his clothes.
Also, we need to buy him a wheelchair with thick tires so he can be driven around in the community. Cost: 150 – 200 € (cost for change to tick tires unknown at the moment). - We also have a child of 19 months born with Spina Bifida (Open spine). She had surgery for it.
But as often, she also has hydrocephalus and should go to the hospital each month to follow up.
But the single mother with 3 children, can not pay for it. The cost of transport and the doctor is 26 € each month.
Besides, she has bilateral congenital hip dysplasia.
