Partnership Overview

Grace Abanga has been supporting the elderly and vulnerable women in the Nyamasore area on a peninsular in Lake Victoria for a number of years now. They have been trained in growing maize crops which has been successful. This project which involves setting up a chicken layers unit seeks to provide them with another source of income, empowering the women to be self-sustaining and meet their daily needs. Once this project is established it should continue to pay for itself as well as bring in a small profit.  

History of Partnership

BHW's New Partnership Facilitator has known Gabriel and Grace Abanga since 2000. They are pastors in the MCO-OCC network in Nairobi (KEN01b) and he met them on his first or second visit there. In subsequent years they did not have a lot of contact but met up again in 2015 when Gabriel and Grace shared what they wanted to do out in Nyamasore, Gabriel's home village, and communication was recommenced. Following a visit by BHW's New Partnership Facilitator in October 2016 and further communication, BHW commenced partnership with Gabriel and Grace in Nyamasore in May 2017 (KEN12).   

Grace spends much of her time out in this village, overseeing the farming cooperatives that are working out there. This is the village of her in-laws, and her mother-in-law is one of the beneficiaries of this project. In 2019 BHW funded a water project (KEN12a) to enable the older women in the community to access clean water easily and also sell the water at a price to other members of the community to give these older women a means to meet their daily basic needs. 

Following on from this, in mid-2024 Grace presented a proposal to establish a poultry house as an income generating activity to provide further financial assistance to this group of women. This was approved by the BHW Exec and commenced in June 2024.  

Beneficiaries

The beneficiaries are the group of ten older women in this community who will be responsible for rearing the chickens and selling the eggs and will be financially assisted by the income generated.  

What We Like About The Partnership

Gabriel and Grace are well qualified to lead and are passionate about the area. They intend to retire here so they have a long-term commitment to the area and the people.
The people they are working with are poor and for many years have struggled to survive. They have both economic and spiritual concerns for the people.
It will assist the elderly women to earn a living and meet their daily basic needs.

Key People

Rev Gabriel and Grace Abanga

Gabriel and Grace have four grown up children. They have been involved in Christian ministry in different parts of Kenya and have a good understanding of the country's socio-economic and cultural issues. While Rev Gabriel's ministry has focused on church planting and Christian leadership development, Grace's main focus has been on child development and socio-economic empowerment of communities. Grace's social organizational skills have enabled her to organise communities and particularly needy Christian believers into socio-economic empowerment ventures. 

Grace is a holder of B.A Theology, Int. Certificate on Leadership Development for Youth through Non-Formal Education (Histadrut-Israel), Higher Dip Project Management, and Higher Dip. in Counselling. Grace worked with Compassion International as a social worker and then project director for 18 years. She left Compassion in 2011 to join her husband in church planting and ministry, where together they started and implemented a micro-finance project in the church to empower the needy members. She is now full time in church ministry and implementation of the projects. Grace is passionate about empowering the needy in communities and the church.

Rev Gabriel Abanga has a M.A Counselling Psychology, B.A Theology, Higher Dip. Surveying and Mapping, and Dip. Land Surveying. He is currently the senior minister at Outreach Community Church, Luckysummer, Nairobi and the Founder/Executive Director of Resource Institute for Community and Human Development Agency - RECADA. Rev Gabriel has vast ministerial experience in the Church Planting Movement (CPM), Christian leadership, church ministries and missions.

Vision And Annual Strategy

Vision

The RECADA vision is to raise an economically empowered community, growing in good health both physically, spiritually and socially. In this case, it is to empower a group of elderly women who struggle to make ends meet as they often live in poverty and isolation from their families. 

Strategy 

The plan is to build a 16x10ft poultry house which will be able to hold 100 birds. They will initially purchase 50 2-3 day old birds and then six months later purchase a further 50. The women will take care of these birds, ensuring proper care and vaccination schedules are strictly adhered to and the birds are fed the right quantity and quality feeds.  

As the ladies only have experience with free range local chickens, they will undertake some short training on commercial chicken rearing. Some local experts in chicken farming are going to meet with the ladies and educate them on practices they need to master for this project.  

Annual Budget

An initial one-off amount of US$1,782 is required to fund the building of the chicken house, the purchase of 100 birds, feeding trays and water troughs, vaccines and food for the first year. After this the project will be self-sustaining.