Tuesday, January 23, 2018

No Place Like Home

Dear Friends,


One of the main areas of focus for K.I.D.S. is education. Often attending and physically being in school is the easy part for students compared to the struggles that they face outside the school environment. We have written about difficulties with transportation, access to drinking water and nutrition as being major barriers children are forced to navigate in their quest for education, and how K.I.D.S. assists in helping students overcome these issues.

Lack of proper housing and toilets conspires to throw health issues into the mix further complicating a student's ability to access education.

We can only imagine how difficult it would be living in a house where the roof and walls leak rain and wind, some children cannot find a place to sleep large enough to escape drips in the thatched roofs. Often a complete lack of a toilet facility at home forces children to spend a lot of time searching for privacy in wooded areas as well ponds or rivers to bathe in.




This trip K.I.D.S. donors, Sarah Gilks, creator and founder, of the Healthy Role Models program and the women who participate in the program have partnered with K.I.D.S. to build 3 new houses, renovate 2 and provide 18 more families from our education sponsorship program with toilets within a few steps of their homes. A big thank you to Sarah and HRM for supporting 10 of these bathrooms and 2 of these houses.

The homes are very modest with windows and a door for ventilation and security and a basic brick outhouse with a small water reservoir, a squat toilet and a drain in the tile floor so they can bathe in privacy. We were also happy to be able to provide work for local villagers.



For these children and families obtaining the resources to build a basic house or a toilet is almost impossible.

Needless to say the families of the kids in our Smart Kids sponsorship prorgram were extremely thankful. We will let the photos speak for themselves.




Thanks again for continuing to improve lives!
All the very best to all of you,
Rick and Adrianne

Thursday, January 11, 2018

Books Bikes and Backpacks

Dear Friends,

We hope all is well with you and yours. K.I.D.S. has a strong focus on education and we are always happy to be able to give out bikes, books, uniforms and backpacks to students. In poor rural areas having a bike is a necessity, not just to be able to go to school but for the family to use to go to the market, clinics and also take their siblings to school; as they travel far distances to get an education. A bike means the difference between going to school or not. It is great to also upgrade their old crumbling bikes with a new one.


School supplies and uniforms are needed and necessary however due to poverty and poor funding they are often not able to afford them. It is a relief to everyone when we can upgrade their supplies and give poor students a new clean uniform that will last them the year. We also believe that kids need to play and so on Sunday we were able to bring soccer balls and nets for the school and all the kids from our Smart Kids program immediately hit the field and happily started playing..so great to see these kids have some fun!!!


Thanks again for supporting these great children, youth and teachers, along with all K.I.D.S. donors we especially thank the many children around the world who saved their birthday money and fundraised to bring kids bikes and better futures.


All the very best to all of you,
Adrianne and Rick