Kenya Project – Norcare International

Norcare in Kenya

Just in Nairobi, 60,000 unaccompanied minors go hungry and wander the streets, forgotten by the world and their families, without access to basic education.

Facts about orphans situation in kenya

Sadly, the majority of children in institutions in Kenya have family who they could live with if given adequate support, which is why our work in Kenya is crucial. There are many reasons as to why a child might end up in an institution or orphanage in Kenya, including:

Poverty – Food insecurity – Disability – HIV/AIDS – Displacement – Abuse – neglect and abandonment – Voluntourism

Approximately 3.6 million Kenyan children are orphans or otherwise classified as vulnerable. Of these, 646,887 children have lost both parents, while 2.6 million children have lost at least one parent (one million of these to AIDS). Other children are vulnerable due to poverty, harmful cultural practices, family breakdown, abandonment, natural disasters, ethnic and political conflict, and poor care arrangements.

Communities in Kenya have traditionally responded to children without parental care by placing them informally in the care of extended family or community members. However, with increasing socio-economic pressures and weakening family structures, this kinship care mechanism is under threat, and many children are at risk of maltreatment. The predominant formal alternative care arrangements are placements in children’s charitable institutions or other institutional care.

CONTRIBUTING TO KENYA’S NATIONAL CARE REFORM STRATEGY
The Kenyan Government has demonstrated commitment to transitioning away from institutions and towards family and community-based care by developing a National Care Reform Strategy.

SUPPORTING A LONG–TERM PLAN OF FAMILY AND COMMUNITY–BASED CARE
On 8 June 2022 the Government of Kenya launched the 2022-2032 National Care Reform Strategy for Children.The goal is to transition away from the current system to one where most children and young people in need of care and protection live safely, happily and sustainably in family and community-based care.

BACKING LEGAL PROTECTIONS FOR CHILDREN
The Government of Kenya has enacted a new Children’s law on 6th July 2022, Children’s Act, 2022 which expands the legal backing towards child protection in Kenya. The law has also strengthened Care Reform by providing a 10-year transitional period in line with the National Care Reform Strategy.This is a huge milestone for Kenya and the region.

Why a Project in Kenya?

In around 1995 Olaf Rudolfsen started to travel in Africa, making documentary films from different areas and countries. Eritrea, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Somaliland, Somalia, Sudan and Kenya.

We made documentary films for NRK-Brennpunkt, Norways national TV station. Working with this project that basically focused on the war in South Sudan we was located with a base in Nairobi and Lokichogio.

During many trips to kenya Olaf Rudolfsen discovered also Kenya and the area around Nairobi. He saw the reality situation for many homeless children in Nairobi/Kenya at that time.

Human Rights Watch World wrote in a Report in 1998 about Kenya:

Levels of violence steadily rose throughout the year as the early 1998 deadline for elections drew closer. The crisis was precipitated by the government’s refusal to enact previously promised reforms to allow genuine political liberalization. National and international pressure increased on President Moi to take steps to address the lack of accountability and corruption that have characterized his nineteen-year rule. President Moi responded with a characteristic combination of recalcitrance and heavy-handed brutality, all the while making promises to bring about change that it failed to be implemented. The children and especially home less orphans had to pay a high prise for this situation

My Documentary Projects in Africa

Street children in Kenya continued to be the subject of harassment and abuse by Kenyan police.

They were subject to frequent arrests and group roundups simply because they were homeless. Although government officials asserted that the children were rounded up with the intention of helping the children, the manner in which the children were treated, both by police and in the institutions where they were housed, belied this. Children were routinely beaten by police and held in station lockups, with adults, for days and even weeks before they were charged and remanded to detention centers for long periods of time pending adjudication of their cases. The complex and outdated legal provisions and enforcement mechanists resulted in the criminalization and mistreatment of street children.

Norcare International in Kenya

Based on all history and personal experience, traveling around already in 1993 Olaf Rudolfsen decided to look for some way to help homeless children, somewhere. Already that time the family Rudolfsen had adopted a child in the area around Bogota in Colombia. A project in Nairobi, Kenya was already in Rudolfsen’s head in 1998. Already at that time he decided to do something for orphans in Kenya.

Today we are glad to inform that we are working with a new charity project in Kenya in cooperation with local Kenyan people.

We will post more information about this Norcare Charity Project in Kenya, when more details are are ready to be presented.

// Regards Olaf Rudolfsen