where we are

The ACCES project is located in Kenya in the Kakamega District of Western Province. Kakamega is located 250 km northwest of Nairobi, about 30 km from Lake Victoria.

The project is situated in a rural area where the chief industry is subsistence farming. The farms, one or two acres or less in size, produce mainly maize, an indigenous white corn, and sikumu wiki, a spinach-like vegetable that is a diet staple. The social structure is patriarchal and polygamous. Women are responsible for growing food on the shamba, the small family holding, for carrying water and for gathering wood for cooking.

The population of Kakamega District is estimated to be about one million. 70% of the people in the area are unemployed. Families are very large with 55% of the population under the age of 15. Only 70% of the children go to school at all, and of those, only 10% go to high school. Girls are less likely to go to school than boys. The children who are not educated for employment go back to the shamba to till maize to support their families. These are the children and youth who will be responsible for their country's future.

Poverty as perceived by poor people in Western Province is defined as a situation of deprivation, which not only includes lack of income and wealth but also social inferiority, physical weakness, disability, sickness, vulnerability, physical and social isolation, powerlessness and humiliation. This situation results into a state of low income and low consumption-a state usually referred to as hard-core poverty. Persons in this situation will not if they had to commit all their resources to food, be able to consume / afford the minimum required calories of 2250 per day for physical, mental and psychological health and well being.

The prevalence of HIV/AIDS is shocking. In the project area, the prevalence rate has gone up from 14% last year to 23% this year. Reports from Kakamega General Hospital and St. Mary's Hospital in Kakamega District show that the HIV/AIDS bed occupancy is 54%. The most vulnerable are the youth in and out of schools. These youth, especially girls, lack employment, abuse and traffic drugs and engage in commercial sex to earn a living.

In the years following independence, Kenya made a tremendous investment in formal schooling and literacy, often committing over 50% of her gross national income to education. Structural Adjustment Programmes [SAPs] introduced in the 1980s caused Kenya to experience a critical decline in educational infrastructure and, in the last decade, an overall decline in the quality of basic education. In Kakamega District, access to and participation in basic education deteriorated, especially for children and youth from poor families, and orphans.

National elections in December 2002 produced a new president (Kibaki) and a new governing party. The new government has guaranteed free, but not compulsory, primary school education; however, the schools are unable to accommodate the addition of the 30% of children who have not previously attended school because of poverty. Class sizes range up to 110 per teacher as no teachers have been hired to handle the children who started to come to school in January.

Women in Kenya are denied equal property rights, putting them at greater risk of poverty, disease, violence, and homelessness. A woman's access to property usually hinges on her relationship to a man, be it her husband, father, son, or other male relative. When the relationship ends through death, divorce, or separation, the woman stands a good chance of losing her home, land, livestock, household goods, money, vehicles, and other property.