There is tremendous food insecurity in Kenya with more than two million Kenyans considered to be experiencing either a food crisis or a food emergency. This dire state of affairs is prevalent in both rural and urban settings and continues to be exacerbated by certain factors including below-average crop harvests, weaker crop sales for families, lower wages for casual labor and food inflation of about 7%.

Over the last year, Father Waldrep has been able to help people affected by food insecurity in five different counties in Kenya and hopes to do so again this year. In three of these counties, the people that Father Waldrep helped are food stressed and eating minimally adequate diets but must make significant changes to their lifestyles to support non-food needs. In two of the counties helped by Father Waldrep, some people are in a food crisis and acute malnutrition affects 10-15% of the population.

While some families are simply not eating enough food, others are adopting non-sustainable coping mechanisms such as selling assets to eat. In the county where many people are classified as being in a food emergency, the risk of hunger-related death is rapidly increasing.

Father Waldrep wants to continue to help as many of these Kenyans as possible receive adequate food and nutrition and your gift can help to make this happen.

This Apostolic Project supports a medical outreach program to the pastoralist, semi-nomadic Turkana people who live on the borders of Kenya, South Sudan and Ethiopia. In addition to operating the Lobur Parish dispensary, the dispensary staff conducts 12 mobile clinics each month in various areas of North Turkana.

Each year, the dispensary treats approximately 19,000 clients. Over the last six months alone, more than 600 children were immunized, more than 600 mothers were given postnatal care, prenatal care was given to nearly 500 mothers, child welfare care provided to more than 1,500 children, nutrition was improved for about 2,570 people among other services administered.

Your gift can help Maryknoll to continue to care for the health and the well-being of thousands of Turkana people in 2025.

Orphans are a class of people for which Jesus would have had a lot of care.

Maryknoll extends this message of Love and Hope to orphans in Kenya, some of whom are HIV positive, and are dependent on older siblings or other relatives. In many cases, these older siblings are forced to drop out of school to take care of their younger sibling(s) and in most cases, this proves to be an overwhelming task without outside support.

This Apostolic Project addresses this need for support in two phases and has been an overwhelming success so far. First, these children and their siblings and relatives are taught about economic empowerment for sustainable food production. This happens through thorough training in smallholder poultry farming plus the gift of ten improved chickens and one rooster. Second, psychosocial support is provided to the children to help them handle everything they have been through.

Your gift can teach these vulnerable youth to become self-supporting while sharing the love and compassion of the Catholic Church.

This Apostolic Project supports women who have lost their husbands, have children and have been abandoned by their families and relatives. These women receive assistance with food, housing and healthcare.

Father Dinh also provides them with skills training for the young single moms to give them a chance to help themselves and their families.

Your gift can create a virtuous cycle of improvement for widows, single moms and their children in Kenya.

Fr. John Waldrep has developed a system to assist women meet their expenses and start some small on-the-street businesses (fruit and vegetable stands, fast food stands, and stands for small domestic items and beauty products) that enable them to meet their expenses and move away from commercial sex work. The second part of this project is maternal assistance to pregnant secondary school young women and university women. Pregnant university students are denied on-campus accommodations soon after the first trimester. In addition to meeting the costs of pre-natal care, they must pay rent and utilities, prepare to cover delivery costs, purchase baby clothes, and buy food. Often, families refuse to assist pregnant students and insist on ending the pregnancy.

With your help, women will be able to establish small on-the-street businesses and meet their daily needs for food, housing, education and medical care for their children. Pregnant young women will be able to attend secondary school and university students will continue their studies.