A Food Business Trial Run For Kenyan Widows & Orphans

On a recent trip to Kenya…

…our team was shocked to find fruit rotting on the ground practically everywhere we went.

“It’s mango season, so of course mangos are rotting. That’s just how it goes here,” explained one local.

The mango rot was particularly noticeable on a trip outside the capital city of Nairobi, where we spent time with Meshach and Elizabeth, a Kenyan couple who founded The James Project to serve widows and orphans in their area. “I was an orphan,” shared Meshach, “and now I believe God would have me serve other orphans.”

Many of us remember the HIV/AIDS crisis that hit East Africa less than a generation ago and, despite being home to only 11% of the planet’s population, sub-Saharan Africa is still the epicenter of HIV/AIDS. In many communities, the stigmas around this disease can make finding help extremely difficult, even deadly, and many vulnerable orphans and widows are often without options.

The James Project has received funding for emergency food over the years, but you know our first question had to be, “How can we get them producing their own food?”

All those rotting mangoes became the key.

What if, instead of helping them grow food, they could preserve food and save it from rotting by drying it?

The photo above shows a pilot project drying station that has proven highly effective under the hot, equatorial Kenyan sun—and you are helping funding two more drying stations to increase production! These stations will help provide rescued food and income opportunities to The James Project beneficiaries as they work for sustainability, and we couldn’t be more excited to see the pilot project going so well!