Rotary helping to reunite families

Fundraising efforts led by a Fife Rotary club is helping to reunite families in poverty-stricken parts of Africa.

Members of the Rotary Club of Dunfermline contributed half the costs towards the Raising Futures Kenya charity programme, which aims to provide people with training in basic business skills and financial management and also give small loans to entrepreneurs.

Dunfermline Rotary’s input covered the training costs for 13 families living in and around Nairobi, and five of these families were also helped with start-up grants of around £200 each.

Additional support was available from a member of the Lang’ata Rotary Club in Nairobi who had particular experience in setting up small businesses.

The initiative meant that children who were being kept in orphanages because their mums and dads could not afford to care for them were able to return home.

Alan Mutter, Dunfermline Rotary president, has described the club’s latest international project as a “remarkable success”.

Explaining the background to the project, Mr Mutter said: “Many children in orphanages in Kenya are there because their families were living in poverty and couldn’t afford to keep them.

“This project reunited those families with their children and tackled the problem of supporting themselves financially by helping them to set up small businesses.”

The cost of setting up the Kenya project was just £2,632, with that being met between Dunfermline Rotary and the Rotary Foundation.

Raising Futures Kenya also met the cost of the children’s school fees during the period of training and while the businesses were being established.

Mr Mutter has spoken of his pride at seeing the likes of mother-of-four Linda, who now earns enough to support her family after setting up a small salon and selling second-hand baby clothes from her premises.

Also Pricillah, who has used a start-up grant to buy materials to make the beaded products she sells, and Mary, a grandmother and guardian to John, who is now rearing chickens to sell eggs and to supplement their own food supply.

From the profits, Mary has been able to plant additional crops on her small farm which she will benefit from later in the year.

TRAINING: The Rotary has helped 13 families in Kenya.