• About 700 of the beneficiaries were from Kandara, while the rest were from Gatanga.
• Ahadi Kenya CEO Stanley Kamau urged the government to allow the elderly who lack ID cards to swear affidavits to benefit from the cash transfer programme.
More than 1,000 vulnerable persons from Murang’a have benefitted from relief food from Ahadi Kenya Trust in partnership with Lotto.
Of the beneficiaries, 700 were from Kandara, while 400 were from the neighbouring Gatanga subcounty.
The worst-hit are the elderly. Ahadi Kenya CEO Stanley Kamau said the majority of the beneficiaries deserve enrolment for the Inua Jamii cash but were left out. Most of them are too old to remember their date of birth and have no identity cards, a requirement for the cash transfer registration.
But Kamau noted that locking the elderly out of the programme just for lack of ID cards is unfair and condemns them to poor living standards. He urged the government to do away with some of the strict requirements, as most elderly people are well known to local administrators.
“There should be an option to swear an affidavit with the help of local chiefs so they can also benefit,” he added.
Ahadi Kenya has been providing relief food to vulnerable groups since the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis in March.
Kamau further appealed families with pregnant teenagers to help them register with the Linda Mama programme to help them access free maternity services.
Most of the families, he said, are unable to access basic healthcare, a situation that puts the lives of the teens at risk.
“The Linda Mama cover will help them access both antenatal and prenatal care and protect them and their babies,” he said.
Kamau also appealed to all families to register with the National Health Insurance Fund for easy access to medical care.
“This is the only way to reduce the many medical fundraisers that are being conducted as families struggle to clear high medical bills,” he said.
He also reiterated the need for the government to ensure Covid-19 funds that have been misappropriated are recovered.
“It is unfair that Kenyans of goodwill have been sourcing for funds to support Kenyans struggling due to the pandemic, yet public funds are being misused,” he said.
Lotto CEO Wangari Mwaura, for her part, noted that the organisation has spent Sh700 million on corporate social responsibility activities. When someone plays a raffle, a certain percentage of the money goes towards charitable activities.
The organisation started a Covid-19 relief programme in March that saw washing points installed in all markets in Nairobi county.
More than 5,000 families have also benefitted from relief food and dispensaries supplied with personal protective equipment.
“We give foodstuffs every Friday. Next week, we will meet about 1,000 residents of Kisumu who have been displaced by the rising lake water,” she said.
The company has launched another programme to supply water tanks to police stations. The tanks will help the police to harvest rainwater during the short-rains season from October to December.
“We realised too many charitable activities have been targeted at the community and police stations sidelined, yet they experience high traffic of people,” she noted.