Foster Care program - every child, a home

A program to provide every child with a home is underway in Kasarani in Korogocho Slum in Nairobi.

The program is being implemented by ANPPCAN Regional Office in partnership with Wereldkinderen, Netherlands. Wereldkinderen, a Netherlands fostercare agency, supports children without a home, to be brought up in a family.

The objective of the program is to identify, encourage and facilitate foster carers in the community to look after children in need. The program identifies vulnerable children, and then assesses, trains and supports foster homes to take in children who cannot live / are not living with their parents.

The foster care home on their part look after children and young people in their own homes, treating them as if they were their own children by promoting their well-being.

Orphaned children, particularly the HIV Aids orphans, are among the children to benefit from this program.

The project arose from the findings from an earlier program by ANPPCAN Regional on Korogocho that showed many children were without parents and were therefore victims of abuse and exploitation.

During the implementation of the program dubbed the Home-Based Day care Centres project in Korogocho between 998 and 2006, the organization faced serious challenges associated with children without primary caregivers. Most of children without care-givers eventually turned to the streets and graduated to street children.

The foster care program will work through systems already established by the Home Based Day centres project, which among others, established community based Organisations (CBOs), local leaders, youth groups among other community structures.

The program will be piloted for 2 years in Korogocho slum in Nairobi and thereafter replicated in other areas in Nairobi.