UPENDO Children’s Village e. V. is a German support association that has established the Children’s village and wants to support it sustainably through personal, professional and financial help. The idea is to give children and young people a permanent home there, to provide them with a school education and to prepare them for an independent life. The non-profit, supporting association UCV e.V. has financed the construction of the orphanage since 2006, to a large extent also with donations from German construction companies and engineering firms, and is recognized by the tax office as particularly eligible for funding because it promotes development aid in Africa. The Kenyan operating company is the Upendo Village Trust Foundation. The opening of the orphan village took place on October 26, 2007. In the meantime, we have created four residential buildings (one for the little girls and one for the big girls as well as one for the little boys and one for the bigger boys), various outbuildings including an outdoor kitchen and workshop, water towers, the corresponding outdoor facilities (including for games and sports) and the necessary infrastructure measures.
We, UPENDO Children’s Village e. V., want to create a protective environment and space for development with the construction, maintenance and operation of the Children’s village. However, the support association ultimately focuses on helping people to help themselves. By cooperating with educational institutions and facilities for learning a profession, we would like to accompany our UPENDO children on their way to independence and create a good basis so that they can shape their future strongly and independently. In addition to promoting professional competence, we also focus on developing personal and social skills, such as learning a sense of responsibility, reliability, respect for fellow human beings, trust, and giving and receiving.
Some people ask themselves “Why Kenya in Africa?”: Hardly any other region in the world is so massively threatened by civil wars, dictatorships and famine as this continent. Of course there is poverty in Germany. For the most part, however, it is a matter of little food and worn-out clothing, or housing that is too cramped and exclusion from social activities. Poverty in developing countries is something else: Here, there is a lack of enough food, clean water, medical care and the most basic resources. These children live in extreme poverty and must struggle daily to survive.
Human and especially children’s rights, the aftermath of colonial times, population growth, hygiene and health care, refugee flows, natural disasters, climate change and much more are global issues. Therefore, such problems and living conditions on other continents and countries also concern us. Widespread poverty due to lack of jobs and social structure, diseases and especially as a consequence no access to water as well as no money for food, school, education and medicine are often the local conditions, so also in Ukunda/Kenya. Very many people in Kenya lack almost everything that is normal for us. For orphans the situation is especially bad.
In 2006 the implementation of the idea began to give some orphans in Kenya a dignified life.
Hardly any other region in the world is as massively threatened by civil wars, dictatorships and famine as this continent. Of course there is poverty in Germany. For the most part, however, it is a matter of little food and worn-out clothing, or housing that is too cramped and exclusion from social activities. Poverty in developing countries is something else: Here, there is a lack of enough food, clean water, medical care and the most basic resources. These children live in extreme poverty and must struggle daily to survive.