Relief Program
The first task of the Omwabini Orphaned and Vulnerable Child Program begins with initial relief efforts. We reach out to orphan families who are living on their own in poor and deteriorating living and health conditions.
Omwabini’s Project Implementation Committees (PIC)* have been organized and trained in each of our current 8 project areas. PIC begin building trusting and caring relationships with orphan family as they help build or repair a home so that the children can have adequate shelter. This gives the children a sound and healthy place to live and begin rehabilitation. The PICs use materials mobilized by the community and funds and supplies donated by Omwabini in the home preparation stage. Approximately half the cost of home construction has been and will continue to be mobilized by the community including labor.
"Orphans are provided with counseling by Omwabini staff as they face the sadness of the death of their parents as well as their feelings of lost security"
The initial relief stage of our program also provides orphans with food, strengthening their health and continuing the creation of a trusting caring relationship between the orphans, their PIC, and Omwabini. Orphan families are supplemented with basic foodstuff during the programs initial relief. The combination of improved living conditions and food security lay a foundation of trust and hope between the orphans and Omwabini. With their basic needs secure in the short-run, the orphans have the motivation and encouragement to learn new skills, start new projects, and begin the process toward sustainably improved living and reintegration into the community around them.
OVC families are provided with counseling and emotional support. Orphans and orphan families are provided with counseling by Omwabini staff as they face the sadness of the death of their parents as well as their feelings of lost security, and fears about their future. Omwabini’s counseling staff help create new relationships of trust, support, and love. Omwabini staff work to bring orphans and orphan families back into a network of community based relationships and support.
Part of Omwabini’s counseling process is to create mentoring relationships between newly reached orphans and orphan families that are successfully progressing and sustaining their development through the programs support. Individual members of the local community are also asked to take on a support role in the orphans’ lives. Such community members can keep a parental eye on the children and families. As a result, orphans have an adult they can turn to in times of sickness, fear, or struggle. The counseling aspect of our Orphan Program, through the use of community members and other strengthened orphan families, promotes and encourages the reintegration of orphans into their communities. The very fabric of the community and culture of Western Kenya is strengthened, and orphans are given an emotionally sustainable base from which to begin healing and growing in what can be a new life.