Wajir Day Care Centre for Grannies

Day Care Centre for Grannies (DCCG) was founded by Sr. Teresanna Irma Fornasero, a sister for Christian community, in 1985. It is located in Wajir, 730 Km from Nairobi (the capital city of Kenya) and 100 Km from Somali boundary. It is an arid area with scarce rain, pasture and food for human consumption. Due to harsh weather conditions, diseases and famine, the inhabitants who are traditionally nomadic pastoralists have been resolving to a settled lifestyle. They face the challenges of getting reliable and sustainable means of earning their livelihood.

Most of the inhabitants continue to keep livestock as main source of incomes. Due to extreme climatic condition they must cover long distances in search of water and good pastures. This mostly affects the aged since they are not strong enough to walk for several days. As a result most of the aged get abandoned by their families and relatives hence increasing the number of dependant grannies.

DCCG seeks fund to help them and to create opportunities for the aged of Wajir to participate in their own journey towards self reliance. Due to high level of poverty, large house hold, drought and changing lifestyle, these grannies have been subjected to dependency on relief services and charitable aid. Most of them however find this life of dependency unreliable and unfulfilling.

HIV has greatly contributed to the needs of the aged because a granny is left with a number of orphans to cater for. Afterwards, the dependant population is getting higher. This implies that a lot of resources are used to provide food and water. This situation put a lot of pressure on the resources available for households that could have been used for investment and capital formation. DCCG hence found necessary to help the aged to meet their daily needs. It empowers the aged to attain self reliance through home visits, food ration distribution, cash handouts, provision of health assistance, huts maintenance, provision of shelters.

To allow the aged to reach the self-reliance, DCCG has been mainly focused on income generating activities such as small table businesses, local chicken rearing, firewood selling, goat farming, firewood selling and grass mat weaving.
The Centre is currently helping 209 beneficiaries with different degrees of poverty and needs.
Decreasing the rate of dependency change the lives of the aged and the one of the whole community. The named activities require less manpower and keep them active hence encouraging self reliance. This is the reason why we are always convinced that the project makes a huge difference in the lives of the aged compared to other areas in this arid land.

STAFF OF THE PROJECT:

Project Coordinator: Fr. Pedro Gonzalez

Project Treasurer: Mr. Patrick Muthui

Project Organization Secretary: Mr. John King’ori

FOR DONATIONS AND FURTHER INFORMATION:

wdaycarecentre@yahoo.com

associazionevolontaria@gmail.com