PROJECTS | Kenya

Western Education Advocacy and Empowerment Programme (WEAEP)
WEAEP is a local NGO which promotes the rights of women and children in Kenya’s Western Province.  Nearly half of all women in Kakamega and Butere districts are illiterate.  Illiteracy is intrinsically linked to low social status, poverty and poor health.  Illiteracy limits women’s options for economic improvement, sentencing their children to poverty, ill-health and limited educational opportunities – linked to rising numbers of street children in Western Province.  Child abuse, AIDS and poverty are forcing at least three out of every five children to either live or work on the streets.  Having been orphaned by HIV/AIDS many children become heads of households at very young ages and must find work to support themselves and their siblings; others are forced to leave home due to neglect and domestic abuse.  ICT and WEAEP have been working in partnership since June 2006 and, together, have developed a number of important projects.

Opportunities for Children in Western Kenya is a project that provides vital educational support and protection to street and working children, orphans, and child-headed households.

Wema Centre Trust
ICT began working with Wema Centre Trust in 2007.  Wema was set up in response to the plight of young girls living on the streets of Mombasa.  There are hundreds of girls who live and work on the streets, many of whom have migrated from other parts of the country.  These children, who often grow up living in slum communities or on street pavements, are extremely vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.  With few, if any, economic opportunities available to them, many are lured into the sex industry, often with the promise of legitimate jobs. 

In 2007 Wema established Empowerment & Livelihoods of Sexually Abused and Exploited Children, a project which provides rescue and rehabilitation services to girls involved in, or at risk of entering, the sex industry in Mombasa and surrounding slum areas.