Hands of Help | Non-governmental organisation (NGO)

Hands of Help

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24.01.2022 We are honoured to be able to support outstanding, resilient women like Mercy in our tertiary sponsorship programme.

23.01.2022 On this International Women's Day, I want to zoom out on my last photo and tell you the story of Frida, one of the strongest women I know, who was cuddling Feli...x in the photo so many of you were moved by. The market stall that sells the rocks for children with Pica sits at the back of her block of land, a small quarter acre plot that houses her home - a steaming hot, two-bedroom mud hut. Frida has worked 6 days a week as a cleaner all her life, and the market stall is her sister's business, her only income. Their families share the mud hut between them. Standing next to Frida here is her middle daughter- Emily- who is incredibly bright; and Emily is holding Rose, Frida's niece. Rose should have started school two years ago but the family have been unable to afford it. They are such a hard working and resilient group of women, but when you've been dealt this much poverty it's impossible to escape the cycle sometimes and life for them is really just about survival. Hamish (@hamishgregory) posted a photo recently of their enormous joy when we upgraded their home with a simple comfortable chair. And with the donations remaining from Hands of Help's fundraising activities over a decade ago, we are now supporting Emily to complete high school, while Rose will start school this month for the first time in her life. She's beside herself with excitement. Here's to the power of women like Frida, Rose and Emily and how education can change lives. #internationalwomensday @ Kenya See more

23.01.2022 Margaret's surviving triplets, Roy and Sharon, continue to thrive thanks to the support of Hands of Help donors who have assisted in renting the family a concrete home, and funding ongoing formula and sterile water for the family. These happy photos came through this week and show a chunky Roy filling out my son Felix's clothes as he kicks back in his rocker!

23.01.2022 After helping Loyce’s triplets thrive to become healthy 1 year olds, we were quickly pulled in to assist in the care of a second family with triplets who were born on our ward in Kilifi in March. Weighing just 700g at birth, they put up a mighty fight and their mother, Margret, sat tirelessly expressing breastmilk (with pumps donated from Australia) for hours on end in the searing heat of the ward, until they were finally well enough to go home. However, one month into their ...time at home, the family lost their beautiful baby girl to SIDS. We have supported the family in many ways since this tragedy, assisting with the funeral and burial, funding their food and rent for a month so their father could stay home to support Margret and the babies, and helping them relocate to a safer house away from the slums outside of Mombasa they were previously living in. Their grief is still incredibly raw but their two babies are thriving in their new home, and the family has asked me to pass on their incredible gratitude to the donors who supported HoH who have allowed them to have hope at such a dark time in their lives See more

22.01.2022 As Christmas nears, we've just sent over a boost of donated funds to our 18 sponsor kids in Malindi to get next year's school uniforms ready, and to purchase a special Christmas day outfit. Lilian, Hands of Help's project manager, has sent me these photos tonight and asked me to pass on the absolute joy this simple gesture has bought these kids. As they near the end of their first year of Primary School thanks to our donors, we would like to say a huge Asante Sana!

20.01.2022 To all the wonderful people who supported the triplets who landed on our ward in Kenya - here's a happy little update as they celebrate their first birthday :) ... --- Dear all, As we reach the first birthday milestone of Joshua, Tumaini and Aaron I wanted to write to thank you all for the incredible support you have provided to this family over the past twelve months. What began as a small idea to provide formula for these babies being discharged from hospital at the fragile weight of 1kg amidst the turmoil of Kenyan Presidential elections, ultimately became a year-long effort to improve the lives of this family and their surrounding community in an immense way. Support which started from a kind community of triplet Mums in Australia extended to many of your contacts and generosity flowed in from afar. Your donations have seen these three babies thrive to become healthy, happy 1 year olds who are now living in the only concrete home within a 10km radius of their small rural village on the Kenyan coast. Their home has become a beacon of support for the entire community, with their Father (Daniel) inviting village members in regularly in his role as the village Pastor. We have also been able to employ Lilian for 18 months to manage the project on a daily basis, which has subsequently supported her children's health and education. As we gradually became increasingly acquainted with the community in which the triplets live, we have stretched our wings to support many people in a variety of ways - establishing an education sponsorship programme for 18 children (from very poor families, who were previously spending their days begging) to attend primary school; a sanitary pad programme to stop secondary school girls from missing school each month due to their period (using pads made by Kenyan women who are themselves earning a salary from this unique programme that utilises factory material off-cuts); a lunch programme to allow the poorest families to have access to at least one healthy meal a day, and grassroots health initiatives such as the eradication of tungiasis (sand fleas) and the provision of shoes for the village. Below you will see the thriving children the triplets have become with your support and their wonderful new home. What a difference you have all made to these people living on the other side of the globe! Thank you for your Ubuntu. Of course, I am now known as the 'Doctor with triplets who helps triplets' and we are now assisting another family with newborn triplets who arrived on our ward and live on the outskirts of Mombasa (pictured below), in the slum regions. These beautiful babies were similarly born at 800g and have recently been discharged, and can be seen in the attached photo on their first night at home (wearing most of my son's old - and far too large - clothes!). Thank you for what you did for Loyce, Daniel, Joshua, Aaron and Tumaini (which is Kiswahili for 'Hope'). You have changed their lives, and certainly provided them with Hope. Any future donations will be directed towards their primary education. All the very best, Phoebe See more

18.01.2022 Amina comes from a particularly poor family, and with an elderly Father there is only enough food for one meal a day at home. She started school this month for the first time in her life, but due to congenital esotropia she's needed a trip to Mombasa to visit the eye hospital so she can use her budding eagerness to her full potential with improved vision in the near future

11.01.2022 Over the next few weeks we'll introduce you to the small community of kids in rural Kenya who have been supported to start school for the first time in their lives thanks to the generosity of HOH donors. The look of pride on Mvera's mother's face - seeing her son holding a school uniform and supplies on the day before he started his first day of school - is one of the things that keeps me going as we plug away at this project in the wee hours. With the help of an incredible K...enyan woman we've employed to help run this project, we received these photos and some background information: Mvera is 7 years old, one of 8 children born to a poverty-stricken mother and an alcoholic father. He's started in year 1 at Mbaraka Chebe Primary School. We asked him: 'What are you most looking forward to about starting school?' "Bringing about a change in our lives" 'What do you hope to be when you grow up?' "A teacher" 'What's your favourite activity to do at home?' "Fetching firewood" 'Tell us something interesting about yourself...' "I just want to be clever". See more

10.01.2022 These incredibly happy kids are about to start school for the first time - some of them are as old as 12, but living in an extremely poor rural community in Kenya, they've not yet had the chance. On Friday we purchased school bags, textbooks, their uniforms and new school shoes and their smiles - as well as those of their parents - were enormous. Over the next few weeks we'll introduce you to them, one by one, so you can follow their stories. Thanks to all the original HOH crew who worked hard to raise the funds who have allowed projects like this to continue, and all the generous donors who supported us along the way.

10.01.2022 Thanks to the funds available from Hands of Help, one of the interventions we've been lucky to be able to assist with over the past year is to provide emergency surgery to children who otherwise would not have survived. Baby Innocent presented to hospital over the period of a 5-month Nurses strike in Kenya - which resulted in a prolonged shut-down of almost all medical services, from immunisation clinics to operating theatres. Children with life-threatening surgical condition...s were sent home to die, as most couldn't afford the AU$2,000-$3,000 admission fees to private hospital facilities. Innocent had a relatively common, simple surgical condition called pyloric stenosis and with the support of Hands of Help, he was transferred to a private hospital in Mombasa a week after his initial presentation, when he was rapidly deteriorating. After a successful surgical correction, he returned home to his rural village where he is now thriving. We are in regular contact with his Mother, Margaret, who has sent the attached pictures of her healthy bouncing boy and is incredibly grateful. We have also assisted Margaret, a single Mother, to start a small income-generating venture in her home town, with which she has built a shop, now stocked full with many items. See more

08.01.2022 At the end of the last academic term, we made a trip to Malindi to see how the children in our sponsorship programme were going. Many were excelling and achieving very high marks in their classes, thrilled to have the opportunity to finally learn. However, approximately one-third of the cohort were already struggling with their attendance, due to severe poverty and hunger - instead of spending the day in school, they were begging for food in local townships just to survive. T...his term, with the simple remedy of spending 60c per child per day to feed all the sponsor children a home-cooked lunch (which is giving some local women employment, too) we have had a 100% attendance record in all our kids. A perfect example of how poverty can trap families and generations and how simple measures can make such a difference to lifelong learning, education and the children of these children. See more

04.01.2022 Almost two years ago these handsome boys presented to hospital weighing 1.5kg at 6 weeks of age. Despite being born weighing 2-2.2kg, their parents had struggled to keep up with the enormously demanding job that feeding multiples is and they had fallen well below their birth weight and were sick with infections. After stabilising them from a medical point of view, Hands of Help supported the family with regular formula donations and gave a small ‘seed funding’ donation of $20...0 to the father to start a small business. We’ve just caught up with their family to find two healthy, thriving boys who have come such a long way since their hard start to life and the family compound is filled with goats who the family are rearing with our donation. Fighting global poverty, building equality, one small step at a time. #everylifematters #buildingequality #globalhealth See more

02.01.2022 It’s not as cute as a smiling African child but the topic is just as important...I recently was lucky enough to meet Victoria who works with @sokokenya_jo to create top-quality, reusable sanitary pads which last 3 years, manufactured by women who were unemployed until they undertook Soko’s seamstress training, and who create these fantastic products from factory off-cuts to save the material from ending up in landfill. Victoria trained Lilian - who is managing Hands of Help’s... projects in Kenya - in their use, and we shipped an enormous box to our high school students being sponsored in Malindi, who normally miss school for one week of every month due to their period. These pads should result in 10 weeks of extra education per year for these girls, an enormous difference in a country where your next level of educational attainment hinges entirely on each year’s exam results. They’ve been incredibly popular and we’re about to put in a second order, keeping the seamstresses busy! Seeing these two awesome women together, working on a grassroots project that makes such a difference to the environment, women and education, was one of my most positive and satisfying days in Kenya @ Kilifi county See more