Caritas Kenya is the development and humanitarian arm of the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops (KCCB). It was established in 1973 as the Development and Social Services arm of the Kenya Episcopal Conference now known as the KCCB. Caritas Kenya was later launched on November 2012.
Through the 25 Catholic dioceses spread across the country, it cooperates with the most poor and vulnerable population in the urban and peri-urban, rural and marginalised Kenyan lands.
Its main challenges remain rampant poverty, frequent disaster occurrences and climate change effects, lack of critical resources (water and food shortage), increasing inequalities and HIV/AIDS Pandemic.
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Running programmes:
- Humanitarian Programme: Caritas Kenya organises emergency activities and integrates a long term perspective for disaster prevention. The programme establishes and maintains an efficient and coordinated system for managing natural or man-made disasters.
- Livelihood Program: Develops poverty reduction strategies to empower Kenyans towards self-sustenance in all areas. The programme deals with food security, microfinance and environmental conservation as key areas of intervention. It also oversees the implementation of water sanitation and hygiene (WASH) activities, in order to promote sanitation and hygiene practices that will ensure the optimal development and use of water and water facilities.
- Women and Gender Programme: The programme promotes empowerment in men and women and facilitates equal participation and opportunity especially among the poor and vulnerable men and women in Kenya.
Other cross-cutting programmes focus on ‘Capacity Building’ and ‘Research, Information and Advocacy’, for strengthening leadership and conducting research for guiding development initiatives, respectively.
Caritas Kenya works with other members of the Caritas confederation, government ministries and also with other national and international non-governmental organisations within and outside the country.