About Us

WHO WE ARE:

We are a group of grandmothers and grandothers in Kings County Nova Scotia.We are directly connected to 27 Grandmothers in Kikima village Kenya. These women have lost their children due to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. They are presently raising a total of 68 of their orphaned grandchildren. The grannies are mostly subsistence farmers.Since 2008 we have provided food assistance as needed, seeds for crops, micro credit loans, water resources for irrigation and drinking.The greatest focus of our fundraising efforts is currently on education. All 67 children are now in school, many in high school and some in community college. To support education for”our” children we provide uniforms,books and supplies,tuition, and living necessaities for the high school students attending boarding school.

BACKGROUND:

Our project manager in Kikima is Ruth Kyatha. Ruth and her family came to Acadia University in Wolfville in the early 1990s. Ruth came on a CIDA scholarship and successfully aquired several degrees. She returned to her village as a community development worker. Our connection was re-established after post-election violence in Kenya in 2008.

The Stephen Lewis Foundation Toronto Declaration of 2006:

African grannies: We grandmothers deserve hope. Our children, like all children, deserve a future. We will not raise children for the grave.

Canadian grannies: We are acutely conscious of the enormous debt owed to a generation of women who spent their youth freeing Africa, their middle age reviving it, and their older lives sustaining it. We will not rest until they can rest.