Sunflower Community Orphan Support Project
So what is the Sunflower Community Orphan support Project all about? The project came about due to the high prevalence HIV/AIDS rate in Homa Bay currently the highest in Kenya. Because of this many children in the area have been left an orphan especially in my village. Most of them struggle to get even the basic needs of life especially food, and so many
of the kids dropped out of school due to hunger. But it wasnt just orphans but also poor vulnerable children who also went hungry, I felt it in my heart that i wanted to help these orphans and vulnerable children unfortunately I had no resources to help solve the problem of lack of food. One day I met Dominic Taddei a charity volunteer from Scotland working with ROTB trust (Roll Out The Barrel). I shared the problem with him and also my dream of solving the problem, and the talk was not in vain as we came up with a plan. The plan was to start a feeding programme for the orphans and vulnerable children, but it had to be sustainable. So we both agreed that a food outlet would be a great way of providing the orphans and vulnerable children with food using profit generated from sales of food to the general public. There was currently no food outlet in the village/area and so would also provide the community with such an outlet, but it would also create jobs and local produce would be used. In fact all food is sourced within 1 kilometer of the outlet thus reducing the carbon footprint of the outlet, also the outlet has its own vegetable garden. So the more food we sell the more orphans and vulnerable children we feed, the children will be fed breakfast and lunch. This also greatly helps the children currently on HIV medicine to which a healthy balanced diet is essential. To start the project after myself and Dominic planned it, Dominic introduced me to the ROTB trust business start up loan facility. To which Adrian Brewer (the founder of ROTB) agreed to give me a 0% interest loan and with a generous donation from Dominic and my own bank savings, and a lot of hard work from myself, Dominic and the rest of my family and friends my dream eventually came true. Oh and why the name Sunflower? Well me and Dominic decided we wanted the food outlet to look a bit different to your usual Kenyan food outlet, and for it to look vibrant, pleasant ambience and to be unique. So we decided that we would plant sunflowers outside of the food outlet and follow the yellow and black colours of sunflower throughout the premises. But also the sunflower seeds produced which provide a rich source of vitamin E and B1 as well as copper, magnesium and Selenium to which the seeds will be given to the children providing essential vitamins to their diet. So i just want to finish by saying a big thank you to Adrian and Dominic from Roll Out The Barrel trust and my family and friends for all there help and support, and I hope the community will help also to support this project so we can start to solve the problem of lack of food for Orphans and vulnerable children in the area. Many thanks for taking the time to read my story and supporting the project I hope you enjoy the food and please come again soon. Celine Okendo
