Remba

Remba Island, on Lake Victoria in Kenya, is home to 20,000 people whose mainstay is fishing. It is a cosmopolitan commercial place with a high transient population from all over Africa: Abasubas, Luos and Somalis of Kenya, and fishermen from Southern Sudan, DR Congo, Tanzania, Uganda. The fishing is a mix of business prosperity that generates over Ksh5m per day, and a streak of exploitation. Most of the boats are owned by people who don’t live on the island but have agents to take care of their boat operations. The boat owners get 70- 80% of the profit made in a day’s fishing, and the rest is divided among the fishermen.

Most of Remba’s fishermen are teenage boys who drop out of school to earn money. The agents hire and fire fishermen at will and there is no job security. With high unemployment and jobs paying little frustration manifests in crime, drugs and gender-based violence. Food security is also a big problem, particularly for female-headed households, and a lot of the children are malnourished. You can help them by supporting our project.

Our aims

Our project is aimed at improving food security and household income, reducing gender-based violence, infectious diseases and malnutrition, improving children’s school attendance and completion, and helping the women improve their business skills. This will be achieved by focusing on five key areas:

Farming

Supporting the women in building a poultry farm and kitchen garden that will provide jobs, increased income, and food security. The farms will also generate revenues that can be used to set up table-banking and further develop their community.

Security

Security lighting at strategic points on the Island to reduce crime and gender-based violence, in particular rape.

Electricity and power

Providing electricity and power to the school in return for a literacy and business training program for the women.

Skills & education

Supporting the women to become successful in life and in business through technical and business training, literacy programs, life-skills mentoring and sign-posting.

Sports

Establishing a football pitch and Island team with uniforms, and a football training and competition program. Teams will be selected on the basis of academic performance and attendance at school.