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Partnership 2021 - 2023

SOS Family Strengthening Program in Eldoret, Kenya

A renewed partnership in support of the SOS Children’s Villages Family Strengthening Program in Eldoret, Kenya between Xellia Pharmaceuticals and SOS Children’s Villages Denmark, commenced at the start of 2021. From 2021-2023, Xellia Pharmaceuticals will continue to provide financial support in Eldoret, Kenya and the SOS Family Strengthening Program which Xellia began supporting in 2018.

The renewed three year partnership will be dedicated to funding the operations of the Family Strengthening Program through the SOS Social Center in Eldoret. The Family Strengthening Program provides access to essential healthcare and education, and families are assisted with essential everyday needs. This can include materials for their shelter, daily living, healthcare support and schooling, while the most vulnerable families receive supplementary rations of the necessary food types.

About the program

The Family Strengthening Program is a holistic program, which works around the child to ensure its best care – while working with the parents to ensure that they are capable of providing proper care to their children. The local Family Strengthening Program team in Eldoret carefully assesses the needs of each family and child to identify the best way to offer support. Key elements will typically include access to essential healthcare, education and other services, counseling and psychological support.

However, many of the families are very poor and they are assisted with urgent material needs such as iron sheeting for roofs, mattresses, blankets, mosquito nets, cooking pots and school uniforms that will allow children to access elementary school for free. The most vulnerable families receive supplementary food rations of maize, beans, cooking oil, sugar and porridge. In addition, SOS Children’s Villages Medical Center offers free medical advice, treatment and medicine to the families in the program.

Over the three years...

Xellia Pharmaceuticals and SOS Children’s Villages in Denmark have joined forces for the third time in another three-year partnership, building on its existing work together. The partnership began with Xellia providing full funding support to the SOS Medical Center 2015-2017, continued by the renovation of the Maternity Wing in Eldoret, Kenya, 2017/2018, and the financial support for the Family Strengthening Program in Eldoret, Kenya, 2018-2020. With this new partnership 2021-2023, Xellia will continue to provide funding to the community in need, ensuring that more than 125 vulnerable and poor families in the local community and more than 440 children will be supported.

Families exit the program when they have achieved a decent improvement in their livelihood conditions. A household monitoring tool is used to assess the level of family health, psychosocial, economic and general welfare in order to consent on the exit.

The families enrolled in the SOS Family Strengthening Program are selected in cooperation with local social authorities, including schools, based on clear criteria. The target group are the most vulnerable families, namely those where the head of the family is the oldest child, old grandparents or parents that are terminally ill with HIV/AIDS. Often these families are challenged and cannot satisfy their children’s most fundamental needs, such as with food, clothing, a place to live, medical treatment and education.

 

Check out the Xellia and SOS Biannual Report 2/2021