News ·
Kenya coronavirus update
Lockdown, locusts and floods hit Kenya in 2020. Because GIFT budgets a year ahead, its projects kept going.
First published on our old website in 2020. Lightly edited.
This has been a time of great uncertainty for us all. We sincerely hope you have been managing to get through these difficult days.
Like everyone else, we had to put our programme of talks and events on hold from early spring 2020, so our fundraising came to a standstill. Because we budget one year ahead, we have been able to keep our current projects going. The big challenge will be supporting them next year. We are so grateful to supporters who have kept up their monthly gifts, and humbled by well-wishers who have sent donations out of the blue. Your generosity has let us give a little support to people badly in need right now, and it helps us look to the future with hope.
The Kenyan Government acted swiftly to bring in lockdown and restrict travel into and out of the country, and between affected counties. There is a dusk-to-dawn curfew, and masks and social distancing are compulsory. In a largely informal economy, lockdown has come at a real cost to people’s lives and livelihoods. In Kenya, 1.6 million people face direct job losses in tourism, and each of those jobs supports five to ten people in a household.
On top of this, in March and April huge swarms of locusts devastated crops in several parts of the country, raising the prospect of hunger later in the year. More recently, unprecedented rainfall has caused flooding on a huge scale. Landslides and rivers of mud swept through villages, destroying marketplaces, schools and thousands of homes, with serious loss of life.
It would be easy to despair. Instead, we are determined to stay positive. After all these years, GIFT International has great partners on the ground supporting the projects, so in its small way our work in the communities continues even now. We were greatly heartened by a message from one community saying that the measures we had put in place over the years are helping to sustain them through this uncertain time.
That one small statement makes us all the more determined that, when we come through the pandemic, we will pick up our work again and keep supporting communities who never lose hope.
Thank you for your continued interest. If you would like to support our work in Kenya, please donate online or get in touch.