![[DRC] Two girls grinding maize in Bena Dibele, central DRC](https://assets.thenewhumanitarian.org/s3fs-public/styles/responsive_large_2x/public/images/212203.jpg.webp?itok=JQCFaueE "The project gives the orphans valuable agricultural skills")
A UN project is helping to sustain farming know-how and other life skills among Kenyan children orphaned by AIDS.
The Junior Farmer Field and Life Schools project (JFFLS), which has been running for two years, teaches basic farming techniques and social health, including family planning, alcohol abuse and gender equality, to 120 orphans at four primary schools in the village of Odhuro in the district of Bondo in western Kenya's Nyanza province.
"Agricultural skills are traditionally taught to children by their parents, but the problem is many parents are dying before they get the opportunity to pass on the skills," said Edwin Adbenya, a JFFLS evaluator and monitor. "We are facing an inter-generational gap that leaves orphaned children without the necessary skills and knowledge for their future livelihoods."
HIV prevalence in Nyanza is 15 percent, more than double the national average. One-third of the country's orphans are estimated to have lost their parents to AIDS.
Peris Adiembalo, 17, lost both her parents to the pandemic before she was a teenager and moved in with her older sister and her husband, neither of whom were employed. JFFLS taught her to plant a variety of fruits and vegetables. "Now that we are growing vegetables at home I feel strong and I don't have as many diseases as I had before," she said.
According to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), a consistent and well-balanced diet improves energy levels and performance in school, and reduces the need for children to abandon their education in search of a job.
The JFFLS school's farm grows sweet potatoes, cowpeas, chickpeas, onions, cassava and medicinal plants, all of which are sold. "Cash crops are important because we want the children to see farming as a business," said Julius Were from Bondo's district agriculture office and an advisor to the scheme.
"In the beginning I saw farming as a punishment," said Adiembalo. "I saw it as a waste of energy - now I see it as a source of food, a source of income, and I know that even if I don't have any work I can at least construct a farm."
More than half Odhuro's 700 school children are classified as orphans and vulnerable children, adding stress and a financial burden to their extended families.
Grandparents are also involved in the project. Mary Ngonga, 55, says she is too old to work in the fields and care for children, but HIV/AIDS has left eight orphans in her care.
Over lunch, the grandmothers sing about the devastating impact of HIV/AIDS and the burden of responsibility the virus is placing on their shoulders at an age when they had expected others to care for them, but their involvement in the JFFLS makes the task a little more manageable.
Anne Anam, who works with JFFLS, says the programme has offered orphans fresh hope. "I am very positive they are going to do very well," she said. "You heard them talking about being doctors and pilots - they now have that future."
With extreme poverty forcing so many children in the region to drop out of the education system after primary school, there are calls for the scheme to be expanded to include all students, not only orphans.
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The Junior Farmer Field and Life Schools project (JFFLS), which has been running for two years, teaches basic farming techniques and social health, including family planning, alcohol abuse and gender equality, to 120 orphans at four primary schools in the village of Odhuro in the district of Bondo in western Kenya's Nyanza province.
"Agricultural skills are traditionally taught to children by their parents, but the problem is many parents are dying before they get the opportunity to pass on the skills," said Edwin Adbenya, a JFFLS evaluator and monitor. "We are facing an inter-generational gap that leaves orphaned children without the necessary skills and knowledge for their future livelihoods."
HIV prevalence in Nyanza is 15 percent, more than double the national average. One-third of the country's orphans are estimated to have lost their parents to AIDS.
Peris Adiembalo, 17, lost both her parents to the pandemic before she was a teenager and moved in with her older sister and her husband, neither of whom were employed. JFFLS taught her to plant a variety of fruits and vegetables. "Now that we are growing vegetables at home I feel strong and I don't have as many diseases as I had before," she said.
According to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), a consistent and well-balanced diet improves energy levels and performance in school, and reduces the need for children to abandon their education in search of a job.
The JFFLS school's farm grows sweet potatoes, cowpeas, chickpeas, onions, cassava and medicinal plants, all of which are sold. "Cash crops are important because we want the children to see farming as a business," said Julius Were from Bondo's district agriculture office and an advisor to the scheme.
"In the beginning I saw farming as a punishment," said Adiembalo. "I saw it as a waste of energy - now I see it as a source of food, a source of income, and I know that even if I don't have any work I can at least construct a farm."
More than half Odhuro's 700 school children are classified as orphans and vulnerable children, adding stress and a financial burden to their extended families.
Grandparents are also involved in the project. Mary Ngonga, 55, says she is too old to work in the fields and care for children, but HIV/AIDS has left eight orphans in her care.
Over lunch, the grandmothers sing about the devastating impact of HIV/AIDS and the burden of responsibility the virus is placing on their shoulders at an age when they had expected others to care for them, but their involvement in the JFFLS makes the task a little more manageable.
Anne Anam, who works with JFFLS, says the programme has offered orphans fresh hope. "I am very positive they are going to do very well," she said. "You heard them talking about being doctors and pilots - they now have that future."
With extreme poverty forcing so many children in the region to drop out of the education system after primary school, there are calls for the scheme to be expanded to include all students, not only orphans.
rl/kr/kn/he
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
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