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Nyumbani Village,
Kenya
Building Community, Rebuilding Hope
The Nyumbani Village (http://www.nyumbanivillage.org) in Kenya will be a self-sustaining community to assist AIDS-affected seniors and children. The Village will provide a family-like setting for orphaned children under the stewardship of elderly adults and will ensure that the community-based clients and Village residents will receive love, sustenance, health-care and education, aiming at their physical and spiritual development.
The
Village will house around 1000 children, young adults and elderly, most of which are HIV affected, that
will create an active, self-sustained community. The Village will provide
housing as well as medical, educational, and counseling structures and
services in an environment conducive to the spiritual and cultural development
of the residents.
With an ample area of tillable land, the occupants will sustain themselves through agriculture, poultry, dairy projects as well as handicrafts and external services. The adolescents will benefit from their training not only from external experts, but also from the knowledge of the elderly occupants, who in turn can benefit from the support of the younger population. Vocational opportunity in the form of training, tools, and start up financing for trades, cottage industry and agricultural endeavors will be provided with the goal of self-sustaining independence, financial security and stability for residents, particularly maturing young people.
The Nyumbani Village concept was initiated when John and Patty Noel (founders of Noel Group) traveled to South Africa in 1998 to meet with the Nelson Mandela's Children's Fund as part of their company's Make A Mark Philanthropic Foundation. During discussions with NMCF representatives, the Noels looked at several projects, and chose to work with a small group in Port Shepstone, Kwa Zulu Natal that had an innovative concept to bring together two groups that have been devastated by the AIDS epidemic - orphan children and elderly who traditionally count on their grown children to support them in their old age.
In
1999, construction began on a self-sustaining residence called Ntokozweni,
near Port Shepstone. Today, the facility houses 25 orphans and 7 formerly
homeless and indigent "grandpas and grandmas." The area is
quite rural and has no running water or community well. We dug a "borehole"
about 700 feet deep which provides water and which in turn, allows the
village to bring in over 300 local residents to come in and grow crops
on the land. They in turn sell these crops at the "Tuc" shop,
which is a little house on the grounds being used to sell their crafts,
clothing, vegetables and also selling the charging of batteries. They
are now slowly becoming self-sustaining and next year will very possibly
produce a surplus for the village. This model is what we have been waiting
for so we could expand this concept to other regions, countries and
scale.
In 2000, John Noel invited Father Angelo D'Agostino, Founder of Nyumbani Orphanage for AIDS infected babies in Karen, Kenya to tour Ntokozweni. The 76 year old Icon of AIDS treatment and prevention in the Sub Saharan Continent felt this concept could be replicated on a larger scale as a potential for the projected 20 million children and babies that will be orphaned in Africa in 2010. Since that visit, Father DAG has been speaking to many agencies, companies and governments about this plan. Of course the enthusiasm is coming from the concept that the village will eventually become self-sustaining.
Today, the concept has become a plan. A much larger "village," modeled after the small pilot project in Kwa Zulu Natal, will be built near Nairobi, Kenya and house 1000 babies, children, grandmas and grandpas. The Village program will be supported with a combination of private and public funding from individuals, foundations, corporations and other government and non-government sources, both bilateral and multi-lateral. The growth of the Village will depend on the ability to raise requisite funding.
The
complex nature of the project requires a large multi-party involvement
and a strong partnership between the originators of the initiative,
several UN agencies, such as UNOPS, UNICEF, FAO, Habitat, UNAIDS, among
others, as well as various members of the NGO community. Each party
could provide funds, in kind support and/or expertise. Representatives
of the World Bank, international NGOs, bilateral donors, private sector
companies and UN agencies have already declared their concrete interest
in the Village initiative.
This innovative partnership between UN agencies, donors, charitable groups and individuals from the private sector, will certainly add value to the Village initiative by contributing to widen its scope, ensuring maximum visibility, link it with other international efforts to the same aim and pave the way for future wider partnerships to fight against HIV-AIDS related consequences.
The problems affecting the HIV+ population create situations that are not unique to Kenya but unfortunately all too common through the continent of Africa. The Village concept presents a potential solution for destitute street children (boys & girls) and needy elderly. It is therefore foreseen that this cost-effective solution can serve as a model across the countries suffering the devastating impact of the AIDS epidemic. The useful lessons learned from this Village pilot project will in turn be the basis for assisting other communities throughout Africa and other continents through the establishment of other villages based on the same concept. The first successful Village will thus serve as a "blueprint" for exporting the VILLAGE concept throughout the world.
To make a donation to Nyumbani Village International, send your tax-deductible
contribution to:
Nyumbani Village International
PO Box 749
Stevens Point, WI 54481