Community Relations - Kenya

The following organisations are supported by British Airways and receive complimentary tickets, cargo and excess baggage.

Advantage Africa

Advantage Africa supports people living in poverty and stigmatised by disability or HIV. The charity works across Kenya in partnership with inspirational people and their community groups to ensure disabled children are included in schools and disabled people can access support services. Advantage Africa’s HIV programme includes prevention education, nutritional support to orphans, a home based care project and HIV testing and counselling.

Haller

Haller works in Kenya to provide a holistic approach to sustainable community development premised on the belief that economy and ecology have to be in balance. Haller’s work is inspired by the accomplishments of the well-known social entrepreneur, Dr. Rene Haller, UNEP Global Laureate, who has nearly 50 years of experience in regenerating rural landscapes in Kenya.

The Haller model offers a unique approach to address poverty through environmental initiatives. It works in collaboration with rural communities to improve their self-sufficiency addressing sustainable food production, safe water, accessible healthcare and education in practical and replicable ways. Haller’s objective is, not only to create a rich and diverse landscape, but to develop a wealth of knowledge and skills, combined with a robust infrastructure, that will enable communities to be self equipped to drive sustainable, economic and ecological growth.

Kidzone Kenya

Kidzone is an orphanage and school sponsor program in Nairobi. The program supports 30 orphans and another 40 children and their families in the community. The programme provides education for those without the means to achieve it and is now seeking sponsors for another 20 school children. Additional support is given by way of accommodation for orphans and subsistence support for families where this is required to sustain school attendance.

A number of BA crew and admin staff are supporters of Kidzone Kenya. Through the British Airways Community Volunteering Awards, British Airways has given funding to a variety of training courses including a back to work course for destitute mothers who have no other means of support.

Nyumbani Children's Home

Nyumbani Children’s Home was founded in 1992 to care for HIV positive orphans. It provides housing, medical care and education for 94 orphans aged three to nineteen. The project also supports 1,500 HIV positive children in the surrounding slum districts in Nairobi and is building a village to house destitute AIDS orphans and destitute grandparents.

British Airways has been involved with Nyumbani from the early days, with cabin and flight crews visiting the home during stopovers in Nairobi. BA staff were involved in forming a UK registered fundraising charity in support of the project. The cabin crew boost the morale of the home with two dedicated visits by a nominated cabin crew each year. Advantage is made of the daily flights with crews continuing to visit and support the home with donations of much needed supplies.

Railway Children

Railway Children supports children living alone and at risk on the streets, many of whom live on railway platforms. Children arrive alone at railway stations for many reasons; they may be escaping violence or abuse; they may be forced through extreme poverty or may have been abandoned or orphaned.

From the moment they reach the platform the children are vulnerable and in grave danger of abuse. In addition to providing the shelter, food, clothing, education and healthcare that are all essential to the child's wellbeing, Railway Children’s ultimate goal is to intervene at the earliest opportunity before an abuser can.

Railway Children aims to stop a runaway child becoming a street child.

Save the Rhino International

Registered as a UK charity in 1994, Save the Rhino International (SRI) works to conserve viable populations of critically endangered rhinos in Africa and Asia. By funding field projects and through education, SRI’s goal is to deliver long-lasting and widespread benefits to rhinos and other endangered species, to ecosystems and to the people living in these areas. Save the Rhino International connects conservation and communities by working in partnership with 14 local NGOs in Africa and Asia.

The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust

The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust embraces measures needed for the welfare, protection and conservation of wildlife and habitats in Kenya by rescuing and hand-rearing orphaned animals so that they can return to the wild when grown, with a particular focus on elephant and rhinos. The Trust also educates communities about the value of wildlife and environmental protection and campaigns against the abuse of wild animals in captivity.

BA crew regularly volunteer to take over milk to the orphan elephants at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust and British Airways has provided onboard blankets to protect the baby elephants from the harsh sun.

The Lunchbowl Network

The Lunchbowl Network was established in 2007 in response to the plight of the orphans living in the Kibera Slum, Nairobi. The Lunchbowl network funds a lunch programme for 450 orphaned and vulnerable children living in the Lindi village.

Every Saturday the children attend a simple ‘home base’ within the slum and here they receive a hot, nutritious, locally cooked meal. In addition the orphans receive a basic food pack containing another two meals to sustain them in the week. The ‘home base’ provides a centre for emotional counsel and play activities; play equipment and toys are funded from the UK. Medical treatment for worms is also funded without which their nutrition is severely compromised.

The support base for The Lunchbowl Network is primarily UK school based. School children raise ‘dinner money’ for the Kibera orphans and through a teaching pack, dvd and assemblies they learn to give with understanding. Everyone involved with The Lunchbowl Network works voluntarily and all monies raised are directed in full to the benefit of the orphans.

Tools with a Mission

Tools with a Mission provides tools to people in poorer areas of the world which allow them to work and generate income to support themselves and their families. T.W.A.M. works with local vocational training centres that offer life-skills, education and instruction in various trades. At the completion of training each student is given a tradesman’s tool kit. The ability to become self-sufficient increases the feeling of self-worth and creates confidence for a better future.

Waves - The Kerrigan Savage Waves Charitable Trust

Waves provides Secondary and Tertiary Education for 30 children from the Mukuru slums in Nairobi and from remote villages as well as providing equipment for skills workshops and resources for gymnastics, music, and scouting. Waves has funded playing fields at the slum primary schools and funds a coastal holiday for street children. Through the African Fund for Endangered Wildlife, Waves sends children from the slum schools and a street children rehabilitation centre on ecology trips and funds environmental projects in schools throughout Kenya.

Working with the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, the charity supports the Community Outreach Programme with desks, sports equipment and books, and school trips into the Tsavo National Park.