"Share Our Effort And Be The Difference"
Helping Hands International Foundation
Helping Hands International Foundation and all the generous people involved believes that we can make our world a better place by opening our hearts and extending a hand from continent to continent. If one can definitely say in some measurable way that, I have made a difference in the world we hope that you have contributed to making the world better.
We know that it takes only one drop to create a ripple. Our endeavors with your help is to connect as many hands as possible in this vast ocean of human kind. The combined efforts of the masses can create a tidal wave which can free the shores one village at a time of hunger, homelessness and common diseases. Thank you for helping us create the wave today.
Helping Hands International Foundation Mission is to educate key leaders to empower women and children bound by situation of political, economic and social crisis by breaking the cycle of poverty and empowering the woman through education and training curriculum by assessing and Implementation of HHIF projects in partnership that provide assistance with medical, clean water, housing, micro-business, and other basic need for survival and maintaining self sufficiency on a village to village level.
With an approach of transformation rather than merely direct aid, Helping Hands funds community development projects, provides financial assistance and training for economic self-sufficiency, and funds educational and medical needs of adults and children in Africa.
There are young girls in Kenya who are no longer have to walk six miles a day to haul extraordinarily heavy containers of contaminated water back home; there is access to safe drinking water now in their village and the girls are in school. There are men and women working as partners to bring health and sustainable businesses back to their community, while ensuring gender equity and environmental sustainability.
There are women in kenya who will be proud owners of a small home, garden and community farm; they will be safe for the first time in their lives now that they will resettled out of the slums, and their children have hope. There are people who will have access to health care in their village; their pain is will be lessened, preventable diseases will be addressed and people will no longer will die on an impossibly long walk to an inadequate health care facility. And the list goes on.
Helping Hands Int. foundation approach is working.
What makes us different?
Volunteers: Helping hands is made up almost entirely of volunteers, including the Board and the Steering Committee. We are committed to ensuring that funds go to meet people's needs in Kenya
Self-sufficiency: Helping Hands approach is one that empowers people to be selfsufficient rather than becoming dependent. All projects have self-sufficiency as the ultimate goal.
Person-to-Person: When Helping Hands travels to Kenya, we meet the people not the statistics. We work person-to-person, and our funding follows that model.
Trust at the grassroots level: We ask the hardworking people in Kenya what will work for them. They know what they need. This approach empowers them to take responsibility and ownership over the decisions they've made. It also helps provide tools for life without destroying culture and tradition.
Long term support: Helping Hands stays with groups and individuals as they develop the skills needed for long-term success. We provide business and leadership training. We fund well thought-out businesses and agricultural projects proposed by the people themselves.
For example, one community chooses to work to build a medical clinic, while another chooses to develop individual family businesses. With this level of ownership, projects succeed and hope is restored.
Healthy Villages
“Healthy Villages” is an innovative, grassroots approach to addressing rural health care and public health in Kenya. Its goal is to improve the provision of health care and of preventative health education to under served populations across rural Rongo District Though “Healthy Villages” we target the primary health risks of the region at a village-by village-level, working always with the District Health Office (DHO) of Rongo with Sub-County officials, and with local Health Center staff.
Meet Our Healthy Villages
We launched Healthy Villages in five ‘pilot’ villages during the summer of 2010, and will eventually expand to work in a total of 70 chosen villages. All villages are based around the same five health centers, and all fall into the bottom quartile in sanitation and access to clean water. In this way, we have chosen to work with the most underserved villages in Rongo District.
They vary in size, holding anywhere from a hundred to three hundred households, and the households range from tiny, mud-and-thatch huts to small but well-built brick houses with tidy compounds and gardens around. Even the main roads of the villages are simply dusty, red dirt paths which wind through crops and fields and grass. The smaller paths are barely distinguishable, crisscrossing the village like a web of red amongst the green. Cows, goats and chickens wander freely, and a plethora of children spill out of every compound – playing, gathering water, ride bicycles far too tall for them, and staring with wide eyes at any strange visitors to the village. Women sit outside their houses in the afternoon, cooking or weaving mats or chatting under the small shade of a tree or overhanging roof. A passerby must greet the residents of each compound as he walks along, exchanging a series of soft-spoken questions and answers that gives the impression of singing a duet rather than just exchanging pleasantries.
Through the Healthy Villages program, we work at a village-by-village level to address the most pressing healthcare concerns of each community; malaria, HIV/AIDS, safe water access, household sanitation and hygiene practices, latrine coverage, and family planning access, just to name a few. We partner with small Community Based Organizations (CBOs), larger Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), international volunteers and experts, and government officials ranging from the district to the village level.
In each of our Healthy Villages, we:
Safe Water
The link between access to safe water and the overall health of the people of Rongo quickly became clear as Helping hands began its work. Access to water at all, let alone safe water, is greatly lacking in many villages; the water sources that exist are often severely contaminated, making cyclical bouts of severe illness and premature death a part of everyday life. In Kenya, 17% of deaths in children under the age of 5 are simply due to diarrhea. For these reasons, safe water is often a top priority for our partner communities in Rongo.
In the search for solutions to this problem, Helping Hands international foundation has adopted a three phase approach to safe water provision:
Safe water sources: Community Constructed Shallow Wells – built by communities working together (find out more!).
Safe water storage: Modified Clay Pots or “Mod Pots”.
Point-of-use safe water interventions: Water Guard chlorination through household use, or community WaterGuard dispensers available at the water source.
This integrated approach works to ensure that families are drawing from safe sources through the promotion of Community Constructed Shallow Wells, and follows global guidelines on best practices to ensure water safety.
According to the World Health Organization, the objectives of a water safety plan are to ensure safe drinking water through a chain of safe water strategies, which include:
Preventing contamination of source waters:
Treating the water to reduce or remove contamination that could be present to the extent necessary to meet the water quality targets; and
Preventing re-contamination during storage, distribution, and handling of drinking water.
Sponsor an Orphan
With an estimated 2 million orphans in Kenya, the issue is inescapable no matter which part of the country you travel to. In the Rongo district where we work, it is common to find families opening up their homes to orphans of their relatives, or even orphans of complete strangers. Numerous generous individuals in the district have opened up small orphanages for children who have no homes or live under terrible conditions. These orphans may be subjected to abuse in their homes or may spend their days doing household chores and manual labor because the households in which they live cannot afford to send them to school. Despite the fact that these orphans walk miles to school, often without any shoes, and must do their homework by lantern-light after finishing evening chores or putting their siblings to bed, there are many who are desperate to attend school, because they know that it is the only path to a better life.
Visit our NEW Orphan Profiles section to find and “adopt” students in need of scholarship support
Because orphans and other vulnerable children are such a prevalent issue in the Rongo district, Helping Hands international foundation has endeavored to support them for over 5 years through the following programs:
If you have discovered this page you are already involved. You have connected with something larger than yourself. Please explore how you can contribute.
1. Donate money.
2. Volunteer work with HHIF.
3. Organize a fundraiser at your business.
4. Donate new and used medical equipment.
5. Sponsor a child, widow or orphan for $20/month.
6. Provide an educational scholarship ($1200 for secondary school and up to $3500 for university per year).
7. Go on a mission trip.
8. Donate new or slightly used clothing, shoes, jackets or twin bedding.
9. Donate books.
10. Become a sponsoring organization.
For more information on how you can get involved email info_hhifinc.org
Your generous donations, of any amount, are greatly appreciated. Without your help, we would not be able to provide adequate assistance to the underpriviledged around the world that our foundation reaches. Here are some examples of how your donation can help:
* $100 to provide Mosquito Nets for a Family of 4
* $250 will provide medical supplies for Medical Clinics
* $500 gives hurting women and children a home
Of course you can donate any amount, large or small, and it will go towards helping women and children worldwide who are in need.
We offer two donation options: a one-time donation where you specify the amount you would like to donate, or a recurring monthly donation. With the recurring donation option, you choose which amount (either $10, $25, $50, or $100) to be billed to your credit card each month, for one year.
Thank you in advance!
Donate
$10 Recurring
$50 Recurring
$25 Recurring
$100 Recurring
It is important to us to be available to our partners, potential grantees, and the public. Please feel free to contact the appropriate office for more information.
US Office
26893 Bouquet Canyon Road
Suite C-206
Saugus, California 91350
1-800-986-9640
Kenya Office
P.O. Box 3008-00100
Nairobi, Kenya
011-254-72-279-0523
