Isabelle's UDP Update

CMSI Mission Associate, Isabelle Prondzynski is currently in lockdown in Brussels, where she was visiting when the Covid-19 measures were introduced in Belgium. Isabelle took the opportunity in her new 'office' to write a link letter, which provides recent news and prayer requests from the Urban Development Programme of All Saints' Cathedral, Nairobi.

Isabelle writes:

In Nairobi, the 350 families under the care of the Urban Development Programme (UDP) of All Saints' Cathedral are not having an easy time...

For our community members, this period means struggling for survival, in many cases quite literally. The virus has not so far affected them directly, but the restrictions have. So many community members work and earn their living from day to day. If they cannot work, they have no income and their families have nothing to eat.

As the schools are closed, the children are at home and do not get the hot lunches which we provide for them. The parents are not paying the (minuscule) school fees, and so, the community does not have the funds to pay the teachers. And the children are supposed to continue learning with the help of internet based lessons... but few have access to the internet...

The elderly members are in particular difficulty, as they should not be going out. They do not have an income of their own and usually rely on the younger generation to look after them - but now, the younger generation is under its own severe pressure.

Food prices are going up, fast. Quite apart from the locust plague which has hit parts of the country, there are now travel restrictions in and out of Nairobi County. This means that lorry drivers are reluctant to bring fresh produce into Nairobi, and Nairobians cannot travel up-country to attend to their agricultural plots.

You can read more from Isabelle in her link letter which includes encouraging news of recent building work at Tujisaidie School, thanks to support from CMSI link parishes.

Please keep praying for Isabelle, the UDP and the community members in Kayole, Nairobi. If you'd like to support them as they respond to the impacts of Covid-19 - or indeed if you would like to support any of CMSI's Global Partners - please donate to our Covid-19 Response Appeal.