Volunteer Trustee for a small Kenyan children’s charity | Kisumu Children Trust

Job content

At Kisumu Children Trust we support underprivileged Kenyan children through school and into a charity-free future. Now we want to help their families! Could you enhance our team as we explore ways to empower the community?

What will you be doing?

You will be joining an existing team of voluntary Trustees based around the country but mostly in SE England. There will be quarterly meetings via Zoom and very occasional meetings in person, where, together, the team will work through issues and opportunities arising from our work in West Kenya.

In a little suburb outside Kisumu, we work with a team of local staff to run a children’s home for HIV/Aids orphans and support a crowded primary school by providing new classrooms and toilets and funding the poorest of the children. We then support children into secondary school and university or into a vocation.

However, due to Covid-19, we are considering new ways to help the wider community. In addition, some Trustees are preparing, in time, to step back a little, allowing new folk to come forward.

We’re a Christian charity, so we’re looking for someone who shares our faith and is motived by God’s love to help these needy folk who have so often been ignored. The community we work in is predominantly Christian in culture and in our children’s home we offer a loving family in a Christian atmosphere. Children come only by referral from the local government’s children’s services.

Could you bring expertise and drive to increase the whole team’s effectiveness - both here and in Kenya?

(Please note that we have listed a range of desirable skills in this vacancy because we’re looking for more than one person -we’re not expecting you to have all these skills!)

What are we looking for?

To really enjoy this role and to thrive in it, you’ll NEED to

• Have a heart for underprivileged children and their families
• Have a Christian faith
• Have at least a basic understanding of oversees development issues, though we all have so much to learn
• Have at least one of the skills selected from the menu (please remember we’re recruiting for more than one person!)
• Have experience in charity decision-making and how a committee works
• Be able to attend quarterly meetings (usually Saturdays) on Zoom
  

It would be GREAT if you

• Have some first hand experience of a developing country, however brief
• Can bring ideas and experience from previous charity experience
• Are flexible, patient and optimistic!
• Are willing to take on, in due course, specific tasks according to your skills
  

What difference will you make?

The Covid-19 period in Kenya has shown us that we need to help the impoverished families of these vulnerable children. You will be joining us just as we consider new ways to help the wider community. Projects such as farming and market gardening, micro-enterprise and local support groups are all possibilities.

You can be part of helping these flourish as the local Kenyan ‘champions’ emerge and take the initiative. Up until now, the initiative has come mainly from us here but we want to see that change gradually.

From the UK we can provide funding, offer training and provide a partnership support system to enable these community volunteers to take the lead.

Please take a careful look at our website to learn more.

What’s in it for the volunteer?

Here’s what we think you’ll get from this

• Making a Difference Knowing you’re making a direct difference to the lives of Kenyan children and their families
• Teamwork You’ll play a key role in a modest sized team! You won’t be a little cog!
• Encouragement We’re all learning together and want each other to succeed so the community benefits.
• Skill Application The chance to bring your vital skills to the team to stimulate synergy
  

Before you apply

Please feel free to contact Mark Cook (Development Manager) if you’d like an initial, informal chat. Our Chair will then consider CVs and applications. Thank you so much for considering this vital, long-term role - a chance to facilitate change for the sake of some of the poorest in the world. God Bless

Causes

• Children / families
• Education
• Faith and ethics
• International development
• Young people
  

We work in Kisumu, Kenya, helping very poor families to support their children through education, providing food, clothing and encouragement. We then provide steps into work so that tomorrow’s...