Nyumbani Village has been an existing mechanism under Lea Toto (mechanism ID 9054 that has been split into 2). Although the activities remain unchanged, in COP10 it will be entered as a new mechanism.

Goals and Objectives

The goal of Nyumbani Village is to contribute towards poverty reduction among target communities by improving food security, nutrition and agro-income among vulnerable households particularly those headed by HIV orphans and vulnerable children and old grandparents through training in sustainable agriculture, food processing and marketing along with other vocational training opportunities.

Currently the program has 549 children and 54 grandparents in residence receiving shelter, food, clothing, medical care, education, spiritual guidance and leisure opportunities. The Village Medical Clinic currently serves approximately 300 clients per month, the majority coming from the outside community.

The main objectives are to ensure that enrolled families within the Village have adequate social support and have reached a certain level of self-reliance and expand of the Health Care Centre in order to provide high quality clinical, nursing, and counseling services to residents of Nyumbani village while integrating the Kwa - Vonza and Kwa - Mutonga communities. These activities will reach an additional 2,000 adults and 1,000 children by September 2011. An estimated 75 HIV+ adults and children will receive care and treatment.

Additional activities include provision of optimal holistic social support, quality care and counseling services to the Nyumbani village families as well as ensuring the residents and the surrounding communities reach certain level of self-reliance through sustainability program.

How does this link to Partnership Framework Goals

This activity will contribute towards Community support and mitigation programs including capacity building for households with OVC to expand care to reach at least 80 percent of children orphaned by AIDS and 80 percent of households with OVC. It will also contribute towards increasing the number of people (including children) tested in both clinical and non-clinical settings

Geographic coverage and target populations

This activity will be implemented in Kitui District in Eastern Province. It will target orphans and vulnerable children, caregivers of OVC, community leaders as well as community based Faith-Based organizations.

Contributions to Health Systems Strengthening

Nyumbani Village project supports the policy development in the National Strategies for the care of HIV affected persons, through cooperation and exchange of experiences with the National AIDS Control Council (NACC). To this end the program will gradually interact with the relevant stakeholders in documenting best practices and lessons learned which will be made available to any interested party, including civil society organizations, private and public sectors.

Cross-cutting programs and key issues:

This activity will support key cross cutting programs on Economic Strengthening through income generating and savings led activities to enhance household food security. The activity will also support educational activities targeting OVC enrolled in the program, provide safe water guards, food and nutrition commodities for house-holds looking after OVC.

IM strategy to become more cost-efficient over time (e.g. coordinated service delivery, PPP, lower marginal costs, etc):

Nyumbani Village is an eco-village with the farm registered as organic. A variety of income generating projects have been established to ensure that the outputs from the farm will be used to meet both the basic needs of the villagers as well as generate sufficient income to support the infrastructure of services. These projects include establishment of a forestry unit with a variety of trees for commercial use, rearing of livestock and chicken units and production of agricultural produce.

Budget allocation: $ 200,000

The Nyumbani Village concept aims to establish a self-sustaining, community-based, residential village that will accommodate both those infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. The project is being implemented over a six year period with a goal of housing approximately 1,000 orphaned children and 100 grandparents who have lost their security in society due to the premature deaths of their own children. Nyumbani Village is providing a family-like structure for the orphaned children under the stewardship of elderly caregivers.

Nyumbani Village will provide shelter, food, clothing, medical care, education, spiritual guidance and leisure opportunities for the children residing in the village. Counseling of both grandparents and children is provided including seminars on life skills, sexuality, behavior change, health care and career possibilities. Through Legal protection the children are able to retain their ancestral land and will return to their homes once they complete their education. The surrounding community and households receive technical agricultural expertise and in return, the community members are asked to tend a perimeter tree system which acts as protection for the Village. The surrounding community is also gradually being involved in identifying the needs of the orphans, infected children and in mobilizing resources to meet their needs.

Apart from providing OVC services, Nyumbani Village seeks to become a resource centre, a focus for social and medical care, together with educational and cultural activities for the surrounding community and an agent of innovation, training, inspiration and technical support for others. It will expand vocational training opportunities for the OVC in Nyumbani village and in the surrounding Kwa-Vonza and Kwa-Mutonga communities.

The village is located in Kitui District in Eastern Province. The target groups are OVC and the grandparents who look after them. The surrounding community also benefits from the program by accessing medical services at the clinic which include HTC, PMTCT and MCH services.

There has been a rapid increase in the number of OVC enrolled; younger children less than five years pose as a challenge in terms of care by the elderly grandparents. The growing number of adolescent children has created a need for continuous counseling and social activities to minimize incidents of indiscipline. Several children are fast approaching 18 years and will therefore not be eligible for OVC care. However, the Village has constructed a polytechnic where children who complete schooling can obtain vocational skills. The challenge is funding for those who are eligible to join institutions of higher learning.

This activity will reach 1000 OVC with comprehensive quality services under 100 care givers/providers.