Friends Pioneer

Orphan and Vulnerable children “OVC:s”

The Orphans defined by Friends Pioneer are all children who both parents died and are currently in the care of guardians, relative such as siblings, uncles or grandparents including those who are in the care of single parents who are sickly or economically disadvantage and children who are forced to look for employment for the up keep of their families. Friends Pioneer also target those orphaned children who give up going to schools, reasons include poor up bringing, lack of parental love, poor schooling environment etcetera.

The goal of the program is to promote the well being of OVC, through capacity building, educational support, and sponsorship to raise their standard of living by improving the traditional coping mechanism and advocating for their rights. The OVC supports 57 children, 40 of the children are fully sponsored eight in secondary school and 49 in primary school. The support is home based, this means visiting the orphans in their respective places of residence, where they live with their guardian. This is where distribution of food and clothing items is done. Friends Pioneer provides mentoring for the children and organizes get-together functions for them. The program has three expense-paying components:

Nutritional Support is giving the child one meal per day. The meal is served during lunch hour in schools or in small restaurants depending on the situation. Friends Pioneer believes that a child can not concentrate thorough out the lesson if he or she is hungry. Therefore the lunch meal is very important to the child. To receive the lunch, the child has to attend all lessons, unless they are sick or having basic problem. For that reason the meal also encourages the child as a motivator to attend all the classes.

OVC education support is paying the child’s education fees. Friends Pioneer believes that education is very vital for each and every child in the world and encourages all the children to have basic education. Therefore they provide all their children with school uniforms and books, for the secondary student it also includes the compulsory tuition fee.

General expenses of the child is also includes in Friends Pioneers OVC-program. As the child have other expenses than the fees of school and food, Friends Pioneer work on the most immediate expenses for creating a good living environment. It can be everything from a mattress, sanitary towels to blankets, medical expenses.