Profile

Flying Kites cares for homeless, orphaned and abused children in an extraordinary way. The children who live come to live at our Center, Flying Kites Leadership Academy, will experience the highest quality of childcare, have access to excellent medical services, and receive a first-class education. Is it extraordinary to propose that homeless, orphaned and abused children have a right to the best services available? Our efforts focus on delivering this type of exemplary care, rather than providing care at a more basic level. Housing every single homeless and orphaned child in Kenya is impossible. Therefore, we must radically rethink the approach we are going to take. Do we provide orphaned children with merely adequate care - enough food to survive, limited education, rows of bunk beds and bowls of rice? Can we expect children raised in these conditions to be positioned to take on the challenges facing their country, to compete on a world stage? In order to have a significant and lasting impact on the crisis facing vulnerable children in Africa, and around the world, we must resist the temptation to water down our care for short-term results and quick-fix handouts. We are dedicated to developing a model of childcare that will be extended and replicated, one that will change the way we think about options for disadvantaged children. We must change the way we practice charity and development; as a result, the children themselves will finally be able to change their world. Flying Kites engages the local community through outreach programs and offers material grants to families caring for orphans, initiatives that deliver agricultural training to subsistence farmers, and hosts workshops designed to empower marginalized women. In order to assess the efficacy of interventions we measure key criteria of all programs, both on site and in the community.