Our Guardians
Our Philosophy
Because we care, with your support we are changing lives for good!
We believe children should not grow up in institutions in isolation from society because of sickness, disease, death of parents or poverty. Children should live in a loving family with dignity without being stigmatised by the cause of their vulnerability. Find out more in Nancy our founder’s video below:
At the Nasio Trust we place children in a family environment which helps them develop to their full potential.
But we do more than that. Our community-based approach is aimed at providing a holistic solution to ending the cycle of poverty. We do this by working with the community and through strong partnerships.
A key part of our model is to support children without isolating them from their community so that they develop to reach their full potential and build a positive futures for themselves, growing into happy, healthy and confident adults.
If there are family members available, however remotely related, they will take the children in, although they may not be able to feed them or provide them with anything more than love and warmth. These are not things to be sneered at, but they are not enough on their own. In effect, the children are still at risk, and perhaps, the host family as well.
The issue here is not willingness but affordability. Many rural people live at subsistence level, a level of subsistence which would simply not be tolerable in the UK, let alone acceptable. Despite this, they have a generosity of spirit and sense of community which are remarkable. Some people will take in children who are not related to them, but few indeed can afford to do so.
Our Early Childhood Development Centres can supply what is missing, and can go much further than the basics which a poor rural family could provide.
Therefore the relationship between The Nasio Trust and its Guardian’s is a vital one, one that we work hard to maintain and emphasis that both support each other equally.
By offering their home, Guardians are supported with:
- Food, which is brought home each day to the family household
- Free education and healthcare for the child they look after
- Income-generation support
- Help from The Nasio Team to mobilise farmland which is often unused
In return
- Produce that Guardians are able to farm is given back to The Nasio Trust for the Early Childhood Development Centres
- A Nasio child is offered a roof over their head in a loving family environment
- The community become more engaged and work together and look out for one another
- Guardians are offered the opportunity to work on Nasio projects at least one day a week
The Welfare system in Kenya
Kenya does not have a welfare system such as we enjoy in the UK. Education and medical care have to be paid for, and in a relatively poor country covering a large area, they are not necessarily available. Even if a school can be afforded, there is a massive stigma in Kenya, as in most of Africa, towards children who have AIDS or HIV, or who come from families whose members have AIDS or HIV. Early in 2004 a school was reported in the press as suing the Kenyan government for allowing HIV-infected children to enter it as pupils.
We believe that our model, developed over time working with the communities to meet THEIR needs, is the right and sustainable approach to ending poverty and the vulnerability of children.
The Nasio model is scalable so when a community can stand on its own and we have funds, we can move on to another deprived area.
Find out more about the Nasio model, and our income generating projects on our main website.
