The family empowerment program aims at improving the situation for a child by improving the family situation. We assist parents to become better parents. This is being done through various activities:
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Improve the parenting skills of the guardians:
The social workers of Macheo give information on general parenting skills for example on feeding, health care, development of children. They also provide the guardians with help and information on particular challenges they might face with their children, for example children who are having problems at school, autistic children, or children who are involved in criminal activities.
Improve the economic situation of the family
For poor families it is hard to build up some savings to be able to step up the poverty ladder: savings frequently have to be spent on emergency situations like health problems of children. For a large part of Kenyas population it is difficult to get access to credit from a bank. Only 8 % of the Kenyan population even has a bankaccount.
Macheo wants to help by providing the opportunity for families to improve their economic situation:
Provide a seed capital donation:
Seed capital is provided to parents of needy children who want to start a business but are not able to save money to do so (for example because they were not able to work due to health problems, or earn too little). The small amount provided by the programme can be used to take the first steps in starting the business.
Provide Micro-credit:
Micro credit is granted to parents from needy children who want to start or improve a business. The parents are organised in groups, so they can encourage and stimulate each other. To be able to apply for a loan the group must have saved a certain amount to prove that they have financial discipline. The saving is then multiplied three times by a loan. The groups repay the loan within 6 months with the profits of their business.
Access to micro-health insurance:
Health care costs can make a family loose everything they have build up. They have to sell their business, or even the furniture in their house to be able to pay the bills. Some families can not get proper health care because they just can not afford it. In Kenya a basic government health assurance is available, which a lot of Kenyans could benefit from. Macheo wants to increase the number of people who are benefitting from this health insurance. Macheo helps to lower the boundaries for families to access this insurance by informing people about the insurance through seminars and in individual talks.
Micro-savings:
another way to decrease the financial vulnerability of families is to help them save money. The groups in the microcredit programme can save for situations where group members need money for emergency situations, like when one of the family members dies, or there are high health care bills. This prevents a groupmember from having to stop their business in case of emergency situations. Read how [name] has benefitted from the programme.
At this moment the program focuses exclusively on Kiandutu slum in Thika. We are still looking for funding to expand the program with extra field workers to assist families, or to start in other regions around Thika.