Responding to HIV/AIDS

Teach a Child Africa (TaC) was launched in 2007 in response to the many children orphaned during the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Kenya in the 1990s.

 

TaC operates in the Nyanza Province in the west of Kenya, which is home to three of the worst-affected counties in the country – namely Homa Bay, Kisumu and Siaya – the latter of which had the joint third-largest rate of HIV/AIDS infections in the world.

 

HIV prevalence in Kenya was around 23.7%, with more than 200,000 children under the age of 15 infected with HIV. The 2012 Kenya AIDS Indicator Survey estimated that there were 3.6 million children under 18 who were fully or partially orphaned, with a significant number having lost their parents to AIDS-related complications.

 

Most orphans were taken in by extended family members following the death of their parents, but this traditional coping mechanism was rapidly overwhelmed. Children often became the breadwinners in these unstable households, they were left with little time and resources to receive a stable education.

 

It was for these children that TaC Africa began its mission – by making secondary ‘Education for Life’ a reality for academically gifted boys and girls who would otherwise be unable to escape from a cycle of poverty.

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​By 2024, with the support of our generous donors, TaC had succeeded in funding over 341 of the most-needy students from Nyanza Province through secondary school, with a further 117 currently enrolled in our programme. With your kind assistance, we can continue expanding our services to deliver the fundamental human right of education to those who need it most.