History
Poverty continues to grow in Kenya even as the economy expands, leaving many Kenyans to confront food shortages, low income, soaring unemployment, conflicts and the consequences of an HIV-AIDS pandemic. To help address these problems, Catholic Relief Services has been working in Kenya since 1965. Initially, activities predominantly focused on emergency relief, helping communities to survive droughts and food shortages, and maternal and child health programs. Over the years, CRS' focus in Kenya has shifted from direct relief and food distribution to a comprehensive development program that works through about 50 local partners. CRS Kenya programs now support children orphaned by AIDS and people with HIV, community-based efforts to increase household incomes, improve family and community livelihoods, health and sanitation, promote peace and prevent early marriages of girls. In 2011, CRS launched a massive response to support Somalian refugees in the Dadaab camp in eastern Kenya.
Partners
Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops-Catholic Secretariat (KCCB-CS)
Kenyan Episcopal Conference-Catholic Secretariat (KEC-CS) was established in 1961. It is the national administrative, facilitating and coordinating arm of the Kenyan Episcopal Conference (KEC). KEC-CS supports dioceses by enhancing their ability to effectively implement projects and programs at the grassroots. It draws its vision and mission from Christ's mandate: "You shall be my witnesses" (Acts 1:8).
The KEC, a faith-based institution, is the assembly of the Catholic bishops in Kenya. KEC promotes, by forms and means of apostolate suitable to the circumstances of place and time, in accordance with the law, the greater good, which the Church offers to all mankind. The authority of the KEC is vested in the ordinary and extraordinary plenary assembly. Currently there are 26 jurisdictions spread over 4 metropolitan provinces; among them 4 Archdioceses, 20 dioceses, 1 apostolic vicariate and 1 military ordinariate. KEC-CS at the national level facilitates and coordinates activities that are implemented at the lower levels of the church structure namely - dioceses, deaneries, parishes and outstations.
KEC-CS manages a number of projects supported by Catholic Relief Services, U.S. government, Caritas Internationalis members and other donors in the areas of health, HIV and AIDS, peacebuilding, education etc.
Coast Interfaith Council of Clerics (CICC)
Formed in 2001 under Coast Peace Initiative and registered as a Trust in 2005 to address causes of conflict at the Coast, Coast Interfaith Council of Clerics (CICC) works with religious leaders from various faiths. Its members include the Council of Imams and Preachers of Kenya, the Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims, the Catholic Church, the Evangelical Alliance of Kenya, the Organization of African Instituted Churches, the National Council of Churches of Kenya, the Hindu Council of Kenya and the Traditionalists.
CICC operates in coastal Kenya, which is prone to inter-faith and inter-ethnic conflicts, violence from Shabab and recently a movement for separation from Kenya. Catholic Relief Servicces supported CICC with a number of projects focused on peacebuilding and interfaith dialogue, the first one being a grant from the U.S. Institute for Peace. CRS continues to support their peacebuilding initiatives and also the implementation of an inter-faith initiative to address early marriage of girls.
Caritas Malindi
Caritas Malindi, the development arm of the Diocese of Malindi, serves multi-religious and ethnic communities of Lamu, Tana Delta and Malindi districts in the coastal region of Kenya. Catholic Relief Services has been partnering with Caritas Malindi in emergency programs responding to drought and floods, peacebuilding, HIV and AIDS programming focusing on abstinence and faith-based care and support for orphans and vulnerable children. In the last five years, CRS has accompanied Caritas Malindi in microfinance programming (Savings and Internal Lending Communities), Dialogue and Action Program protecting girls using inter-faith approaches, Arid/Marginal Lands Recovery Project and Integrated Water Resource Management Program.
Programs
Agriculture
Catholic Relief Services works with our partners and the government of Kenya to implement innovative agriculture and environment programs for poor farmers in Kenya. The Office for Foreign Disaster Assistance-funded Arid and Marginal Lands Recovery project works with 15,000 families in Eastern and Coastal Kenya to ensure that vulnerable, rural communities have sustainable access to food. The Diversification of Coffee Farmers' Livelihoods project is funded by Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. and works with 1,000 coffee farmers in Nyeri County to improve their income. Lastly, the Modernizing Extension and Advisory Services project, funded by the University of Illinois, aims to build capacity of 30 Ministry of Agriculture staff to improve agro-enterprise.
Catholic Relief Services continues to support communities through the design and implementation of emergency projects as well as early recovery and reconstruction projects. CRS is currently supporting seven emergency projects in various parts of the country. CRS also continues to support more than 20,000 Somali refugees in Dadaab Refugee Camp to meet their water, sanitation and hygiene needs. The main donors for these projects include Caritas Internationalis, Vista Hermosa Foundation and CRS private funding.
Catholic Relief Services works with more than 50 partners to implement health and HIV and AIDS projects in Kenya, where it covers 21 of the 42 counties, mainly in Rift Valley, Nyanza, and central and eastern regions. CRS implements USAID-funded APHIAPlus programs in 9 counties in Rift Valley and 8 counties in the North Arid Lands, the CDC-funded SAIDIA program in 3 counties, and the Prisons HIV and TB Program in all Kenya prisons. The goal of these programs is to improve and expand care and support for people and families affected by HIV and AIDS. The goal of the program is to increase the Kenya Prisons Service (KPS) capacity to provide quality HIV care and support to prison inmates, KPS staff and their families and communities surrounding prisons.
CRS also implements numerous projects dealing with orphans and vulnerable children including the Hilton Foundation-funded THRIVE Early Childhood Development Project, The Children Behind Project and the Child Survival Project.
Since 2006, Catholic Relief Services Kenya has implemented a savings-led microfinance model known as Savings and Internal Lending Communities (SILC). The program aims to improve quality of life of communities through economic empowerment and microenterprise development. The program has reached more than 183,000 community members across the country. SILC is primarily integrated with other programs including HIV and AIDS, water, sanitation and hygiene, agriculture and emergency response.
Projects in this sector focus on one or more of the following areas: peaceful coexistence of communities in Nairobi slums, addressing the problem of early marriages and promoting children's rights in the Coast province using an interfaith dialogue approach, peaceful coexistence of communities that were in conflict in Rift Valley and Coast. Currently the main projects include the dialogue and action project—which uses interreligious approaches to raise community awareness and reduce incidence of early marriage at the Coast—and the Coast Interfaith Council of Clerics, which seeks to build stronger interreligious capacity for addressing development concerns.
Catholic Relief Services works with our partners to implement comprehensive water, hygiene and sanitation (WASH) programs in Kenya. On the coast of Kenya, the Magarini Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) project aims to reduce vulnerability of more than 6,000 community members to water-related disasters by ensuring integrated water resource management. In Isiolo County, CRS helps improve the lives of more than 2,000 community members through improved WASH services. In the Northern Arid Lands, CRS implements the USAID-funded Kenya Arid Lands Disaster Risk Reduction Program to increase resilience to drought and flash floods while simultaneously increasing access to improved water supply and sanitation services and improving hygiene behaviors for more than 40,000 poor and vulnerable people in Turkana, Marsabit (including Moyale District), Garissa, Isiolo and Wajir.
