World Vision Kenya marks its 40th Anniversary

Friday, February 27, 2015

On February 19th, 2015, World Vision Kenya marked a historic milestone celebrating 40 years of dedicated service to children and communities in Kenya. World Vision has been working to empower and improve the lives of Kenyans since 1974 and is involved in assisting 35 of 47 counties in Kenya with clean water among other programmes.

The celebrations to mark this important milestone were held in Kisapuk Primary School in Osiligi in Kajiado County where World Vision Kenya has operations. The colourful event was graced by the Deputy County Governor for Kajiado, Mr Paul Ntiati besides other dignitaries from various NGOs and business partners as well as 300 children from the school and community members.

The choice of Osiligi Area Development Programme to host the event was deliberate and consistent with World Vision’s Integrated Focus to ensure that we do it with children and right in the centre of the community.

Speaking during the event, World Vision Kenya’s National Director, Dickens Thunde said, this was a great opportunity to reflect back on God’s faithfulness.

“This is a very big occasion for us, to look back and see how faithful God has been and celebrate the sponsors and donors who have faithfully given towards the work that we have been doing in this country. We are also grateful to the communities and the children. They have been through different challenges and yet they have persevered. We are grateful when we see people’s lives, particularly children, being transformed,” Mr Thunde said.

The National Director took the opportunity of the celebrations to recognize the Church in Kenya, which has been instrumental in World Vision’s work since its inception. He also lauded the government of Kenya for the vital role it has played in ensuring that World Vision is able to implement its projects across the country.

It was widespread drought and famine which first brought World Vision to Kenya in 1974 in Makueni County. After its early relief work, World Vision started sponsorship in Kenya with 2,000 children in 1978 in Matonyok in Narok County.

“From this small seed, World Vision’s work has grown to provide care to communities through 152,826 child sponsorships in 57 Area Development Programmes spread across 35 counties. In 2014, World Vision Kenya reached a total of 1,720,090 children through various interventions within its current three years strategy,” said Dr. Rachel Masake, a member of the World Vision Kenya board and WVI Board member.

“Before World Vision came to the Osiligi area, women and children had to walk long distances in search of water. But now, I can easily get water and this leaves me enough time to concentrate on my business which is my source of income,” said Pushansobro Ole Shani a community member. World Vision has drilled 18 solar-powered boreholes in the area benefitting over 21,000 people among them 12,300 children.

As it marks 40 years, World Vision Kenya is keen to maintain its focus on enabling communities reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice.

“Moving forward, we want to leave a lasting impact on children. To achieve this we want our development interventions to go deeper and we will do this through partnerships. We recognize that we cannot do anything on our own thus we need to partner with the communities, children, the Church and the government. We want to continue to grow our partnership with our donors and many other like-minded organisations,” the National Director said.

The journey has not been without challenges and as World Vision Kenya turns 40 most of the support still comes from overseas donors. The office is already exploring ways to mobilize resources locally, challenging Kenyans to respond to Kenyans and supplement that which comes from foreign donors.