The need - Poverty has always been recognized as the major cause of disease, death, and disability (UNICEF, 2017). Large families in rural areas often face these problems and the earning members of the family are mostly unable to cope-up with the situations and day to day survival becomes difficult. With the death of their parents, children are left as orphans and destitute. These children often starve without shelter, food, clothing and suffer inaccessibility to education (UNICEF, 2017). In Kenya, it is estimated that there are approximately 3.6 million children aged < 18 years who have been orphaned or who are vulnerable (Lee, et al., 2014).According to the Government of Kenya (2016), Homabay county Children below 15 years constitute 47% of the population, while youth aged 15-24 years constitute 21% of the population. Further to this, the HIV prevalence in Homa Bay is nearly 4.5 times higher than the national prevalence at 26.0% (Government of Kenya, 2016). GoK observes that approximately 548 children and 2,759 adults died of AIDS-related conditions in 2015 which is contributes to the high numbers of orphaned children in the County.
Effects of Covid-19: Globally, and Kenya in particular, economic growth has been and will be negatively impacted by COVID-19 shocks with direct consequences to the poor, vulnerable and marginalized households who rely on informal employment and businesses to fend for their children. Their ability to finance school related expenditure such as school kits, meals, learning materials has been severely compromised with the pandemic. With the Government adopting remote teaching to support distance learning and online education delivered through radio and television and internet, leaners from poor, vulnerable and marginalized households including learners from Agape Orphanage and School have no access to these mediums of learning further worsening inequality in access and quality of education.
With COVID-19 school stoppage, children of widows are unable to access online school if it exists, disrupting their qualifications for sitting for annual exams, and having long-term implications on their path forward. Furthermore, continued lockdown and loss of employment means widows may struggle to return to work in the post-COVID world, rendering them further weakened in addressing their children’s educational needs.

The intervention – To address the above-mentioned needs, Agape Orphanage and School seeks to provide 300 Orphans with meals, accommodation and learning environment. Objective 1 of the project will thus focus on the implementation of the following activities during the Program period.
1. Provide food, shelter, education for 300 orphans, semi-orphans and destitute children in the Orphanage. Situated in Homabay County, Kenya, Agape Orphanage and School caters for the needs of poor and destitute children. Currently, these children are provided with food, shelter, education and clothing with the support of donations (Figure 1). The project seeks to ensure that the 300 children have access to food, shelter and live in better environment.

2. Improve the children's lives by teaching them Christian virtues and moral lessons. Helping them to become disciplined and self- reliant. The children are to be brought up in a disciplined environment that encourages growth and empowerment. They will be taught, given love and guidance for their whole being Body, Soul, and Spiritual growth by their tutors.