Watch an introduction to the ministry of CMA >
CMA firmly believes that by developing communities, we are investing in the future. We provide training, education and resources to combat drought, environmental degradation, HIV/AIDS and economic decline that has gradually pushed the poorest families and most marginalized people toward destitution.
As we empower local people to grow food, protect the health of their children, earn a living and care for the sick and displaced, they gain the confidence and skills to assume leadership of the programs and carry them forward.
HIV/AIDS Response
In Kenya, HIV/AIDS is concentrated among the most productive age group – parents and caregivers. Nyanza province is one of the worst hit, initially reporting a prevalence rate of 28%. Active labor has been lost, children orphaned and many have dropped out of school. Families are becoming poorer.
CMA joined the fight against AIDS in 1999 through the CLEAR (Community Leaders Educated Aids Response) program based in Nyanza province. CLEAR runs in three phases:
(I) Awareness creation
(II) Home based care and medical support
(III) Widows and orphan support program.
This program encourages community members to reach to their own. Members receive training on Aids orphanHIV/AIDS. They go round the villages and to public gatherings, educating and sensitizing their community on how to avoid infection, and re-infection while fighting myths that AIDS is a curse and social stigma. CLEAR also provides People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLWAs) with counseling and medical support to fight opportunistic infections; and identifies poor affected families that CMA assists in developing small businesses; helping them to earn an income for food and school. In 2007, CLEAR started a housing project – “Units of Hope” in support of widows and orphans. Each unit consists of a two-roomed house, a bed and mattress, a latrine, shower and water storage tank. CMA also initiated a goat project to provide widows and orphans with milking goats for milk production and income-generation. CMA’s contribution towards fighting HIV/AIDS in Nyanza has led to a significant drop in new infections from 28% to 14% in less than ten years.
Download comprehensive information on the CLEAR project here.
Environment Program
People living in Maasailand and Machakos districts of Kenya face starvation each year due to extremely difficult growing conditions and a harsh environment leading to crippling poverty. CMA’s Students Teachers Environmental Program (STEP) is teaching communities in these areas the importance of environmental conservation and techniques of growing food in the arid environments. This is in an effort to combat desertification as well as create income-generating activities.
STEP uses schools as entry points into these communities. CMA had reached hundreds of schools training teachers in agricultural techniques, planting and care of tree seedlings. The teachers in turn start tree nurseries and gardens in schools where children learn these techniques. Over the years, farmers, schools and neighboring homesteads have reported an increase in food production and income, a vital step towards overcoming poverty and achieving sustainable development.
Agricultural Training
A harsh climate and a more than two decades civil war have devastated South Sudan, causing prolonged periods of hunger. To cover the hunger gap, CMA teaches the Sudanese people agricultural techniques such as recession agriculture where crops are grown during the dry season using swamp water left behind after the rains.
The gardens are established near swamps where the soil is moist and fertile. Irrigation canals are dug to channel the water into the plots. The farmers learn to cultivate, plant, harvest, store and preserve the produce from these gardens. Through recession agriculture, communities are able to grow food crops and efficiently preserve it, ensuring food security. Hundreds of families have been trained with vital and life-saving agricultural techniques while others have recieved crucial information on productive agricultural techniques.
Income Generating Activities
CMA’s micro-finance services open the doors to dignity and hope – empowering the poor to act on innovative ideas and engage in meaningful trade. By training students, parents, teachers, and recognized community leaders, we ensure that the resources necessary for sustainable development stay in the communities where they are most needed.
Through the Capacity Building and Livelihoods (CBL) program, CMA has actively provided hundreds of households heads in South Sudan with training and access to small business start-up loans. Our beneficiaries consistently invest in sustainable development. They are also reliable and repay their loans faithfully.
Comprehensive Eye Care
In April 2006, CMA expanded the Trachoma Control Program (TCP) to include comprehensive eye care and set up a mobile unit. In addition to conducting trachoma and cataracts surgeries, the Comprehensive Eye Care Services (CES) unit teaches on proper nutrition and hygiene for healthy eyes and rehabilitates the irreversibly blind. The mobile team rotates around the Upper Nile area and has become an icon of hope to many blind people, some of whom walk for more than three months to have their eyes operated on. The team has reached more than 50,000 people so far. Many of those operated on regained their eyesight. Training is also a core component of the CES project. Sudanese nationals, from indigenous non-governmental organizations, are trained as community eye workers, ophthalmic and rehabilitation assistants, and cataract surgeons. In addition, those with irreversible blindness are rehabilitated and lead independent lives. Many of them are also empowered to generate an income by recieving a cow, that, among other things, produces milk for sale.