Since its inception in 2005, The Olive Branch for Children has grown tremendously. We have successfully accomplished the expansion and improvement of the Iwambi Lutheran Orphanage Centre. In addition, the Olive Branch for Children is funding a scholarship program it developed, ensuring that youth with academic ability from the Iwambi Centre, our OVC program and the Zion Home are able to attend higher end secondary institutions and University. In 2008, The Olive Branch for Children, with the support of members of the Vaughan business community spearheaded by Dr. John Leong, established the Iwambi Medical Clinic.
In 2006, The Olive Branch for Children began the Zion Home. The Zion Home provides children with chronic or serious illnesses with a loving and supportive environment, based on a strong focus on nutrition and attentive medical care. The results have been astounding. The crux of the Zion Home is the creation of a “family” to provide the children with an environment that ensures that they flourish and become the leaders of tomorrow. We now support 14 children at our Zion Home.
The Olive Branch for Children is now focused on our new model of community specific programming. In 2006, we were working in only one village and its sub-villages. We are now working in partnership with over 25 villages and are helping to develop and implement with the various communities public health programming that will touch in a positive manner over 60 000 lives. In our participating villages and have seen a significant reduction in intestinal worms and other stomach-related illnesses due to our UNIVERSAL DE-WORMING campaign and our CLEAN WATER campaign. Working with the local and district governments, the Olive Branch for Children helped the village of Mahongo continue the construction of its medical clinic.
The Olive Branch for Children has started providing baseline, community health education on various topics such as the importance of using and maintaining mosquito nets, HIV/AIDS prevention, testing and treatment, the importance of boiling water, washing hands and basic hygiene, health monitoring, digging pit latrines, family planning and encouraging parents to send their children to school. In addition, we are starting a commitment to water, supporting the construction of borehole wells in villages with little to no access to water, as well as improving existing government irrigation and water supply initiatives.
Part of The Olive Branch for Children’s public health programming is early childhood education. Our Kindergarten training workshops have helped The Olive Branch, working together with local governments, establish Montessori-based kindergartens in 25 remote villages. Over twenty-seven teachers received teacher training and Montessori material-making training in 2008, helping fourteen communities open Kindergartens. In July to August of 2009, we hosted another three-week training with Pam Leudke and Jamie Rossiter, Montessori Trainers from Canada, and trained 28 teachers.
The Olive Branch for Children provides 280 People Living with HIV/AIDS, including 50 children, in 10 villages with at home support, necessary at home medical care and opportunistic infections medicines. We provide them with nutritional supplements and monthly group meetings. The participants are divided into groups and provided with milking goats for nutritional purposes and for income-generation. The groups are also provided with trainings in sustainable agriculture and helped to establish home-gardens. This year, in May, we hosted a 3-day sustainable agriculture training in the village of Mahongo for our Orphans and Vulnerable Children program. In November 2009, The Olive Branch for Children hosted a 21-day, Community Home Based Care Providers’ training in partnership with the US Ambassador’s HIV/AIDS Relief Fund and the Mbarali District. 19 villagers were trained as Community Home Based Care Providers.
