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The initial cost to start the project, was met by a UNICEF grant. A fund was the started in 1994 with the help of a local English businessman and this fund has enabled the project to continue and expand.
The success of the Street Scouts is amazing. There are now children with positive attitudes, who no longer steal, sniff glue or rummage around the rubbish tips for scraps of food. They are becoming useful members of the community who enjoy belonging to the worldwide family of Scouts. Their needs are so small when compared with ours and a small amount of money can go a long way and make a real difference.
In 1997 one of our leaders, Ivy Elsey was taken to Kenya by the Noel Edmunds TV show, Noel’s Christmas Presents. Whilst there she met Scouters from the Kenya Scout Association who told her of their Extension Scouting programme to help street children by offering Scouting. She returned and issued East Sussex County Cub Scouts a challenge to raise some money in small amounts to help. The appeal was a phenomenal success and since 1997, The Beaver Scouts, Cub Scouts, Explorer Scouts and Scout Network have worked hard to support the Kenya Scouts Association with its work. They have helped projects by helping them to build animal houses, buy animals and pay the vet's fees. Electricity and solar energy panels have been supplied to Scout Huts where some of the children are able to find regular shelter instead of sleeping on the streets. Scouts from East Sussex regularly visit the projects in Kenya and work with the Kenyan Scouts to build new huts and clear land for crops and to exchange friendship.
Projects have been set up in many areas and children are now being taught skills and trades as well as growing food, and the aim is now to support them to become more self-sufficient but there is still a great deal of work to be done.
Every penny raised goes directly to the children (there are no expenses taken from the funds). We also sell artefacts, many of which are made by the Street Scouts.
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