We support Upendo Children, Kilifi, through our Mission Partner, Alison Talbert.

Alison Talbert is our Mission Partner in Kilifi, Kenya. She is a paediatrician with research interests in malnutrition, infection and infant and young child feeding. She moved to Kilifi in 2005 from Tanzania where she collaborated with Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine on tick-borne relapsing fever control using insecticide treated bed nets. She is now leading a community based study of breastfeeding practices and advice given to first time mothers in Jaribuni Division. She is a trustee of Upendo Children.

Upendo Children Kilifi is a Christian Based Organization registered in 2002 by the Upendo Methodist Women Group (a group of women from the Kilifi Methodist Church). The women became concerned at the growing number of children begging on the streets of Kilifi – a phenomenon not previously known in this small town on the coastal Kenya. They realized that more and more of the children were losing their parents due to AIDS, and although most were taken in by other family members, the poverty level here meant that the families just could not feed the extra mouths.

Upendo Children Kilifi works in Kilifi, one of the poorest counties in Kenya, which has one of the highest rates of illiteracy and unemployment. Orphans are particularly vulnerable in this environment. The Upendo Methodist Women Group knows the local population well and work closely with the orphans’ guardians, thus providing a real strength to the project.

Today, over 60 such children are being looked after by the project due to the extraordinary determination of these women.

Although the project was founded by women from the Kilifi Methodist Church, the project supports children of all beliefs: it is essentially humanitarian in its work.

More information about Upendo may be found on their website.