Turkana Empowerment Initiative (TEI) is a Community Based Organization founded and registered in the district social services office reg.no.6617 in 2011 as a group bearing the name Ephraim Empowerment Centre. The Organization since its inception has undergone several transitions that have earned it current Identity and registration in the ministry of labor, social security and services as a CBO w
ith registration number DGSD/TRKW/CBO/10139.Its main aim is to reform Survivors of street, Child Labor and early marriages. Our area of operations covers the seven (7) wards of Turkana West sub County (Kakuma, Lokichogio, Letea, Lopur, Kalobeyei, Song’ot, and Nanam); with our focus mainly in Kakuma refugees camp because it is the centre of interest for children. The organization has so far reformed six (6) children two of whom are orphans and four survivors of neglect. Also we have been supported before by the Turkana County Government in the tree planting and town beautification project which are in their final stages. The children are also involved in carrying heavy duties such as carrying food rations from food distribution centers to employers’ homes. Girls carry these rations on their heads while boys push them in wheelbarrows. Rations are normally too heavy for a child to carry, but employers never have that within their consideration. Poverty is the major contributing factor to child labor in Kakuma. Most laboring children are bread-winners for their family. Families do not attempt to stop children working, but instead rely heavily on the earnings of children for food and other basic needs. Thus most children do not to school. Their guardians do not encourage them to attend school, for fear of going to bed hungry. Some children work as a result of peer pressure. Once they see that their friends have some money, they also involve themselves in child labor. Some children are orphans and have no one to care for them, leaving them with no option but to hustle for their lives. Others came to Kenya without relatives, and life was unbearable until they began working to feed themselves. Collectively, these children call themselves “survivors. BASELINE SURVEY REPORT By LWF”Stop Child Exploitation Project “– Turkana West Sub County © April 2014
