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CHAPS

Community Health Africa Poverty Solutions

Our 2024 focus: Family Planning


For 2024, the generous donors to CHAPS have enabled Communities Health Africa Trust to field 12 Family Planning (FP) outreach counselors in Northern Kenya.  These 12 counselors will be spread across the underserved regions of northern Kenya with their outreach bringing family planning information and counseling to the nomadic tribes in their home encampments.  


Several large funders have moved into the Nanyuki, Kenya area but are focused on outreach in the slums and close in villages.  While this is valuable activity, it is in the remote areas that family planning can have a huge impact.


By spacing the arrival of babies by a few years, the family will have much healthier children and mothers will be more able to care for the family in the face of adversity such as drought.  The use of family planning also means that the girls can finish schooling.  The effort to bring family planning to these areas began 25 years ago and there are now positive signs of success:



The saying “Educate a boy and you educate a man, educate a girl and you educate a family” is being proven over and over again.  The elders can see how much better the children of educated mothers do in school and are giving permission for school age girls to use family planning.


With the children separated by a few years it means fewer children are born.  By reducing the pressure on the environment to feed an overwhelming population, human wildlife conflict is reduced, and the degradation of the ecosystem is moderated.













Guidestar Silver Ranking



Chaps is now designated Silver Rating by Guidestar.  We are looking at moving up to a Gold rating but at present it would require us to spend significant funds on an accounting audit.  Should we find a volunteer who can audit our very simple books we will revisit the question.  In the mean time those funds will be spent in support of family planning.









What We Do


CHAPS provides direct funding to remote clinics that have proven to be effective in their environment. These clinics receive only small amounts of funding from large programs and we endeavor to fill in the gaps. You may direct your donations to one of the following categories of funding:  Family Planning, general healthcare, clinic operations, unrestricted funds.






Family Planning 


Family planning is one of the most critical needs for remote communities to survive and thrive.  By choosing to space their children 3-5 years apart it is possible for the whole family to survive the devastating droughts that regularly sweep the north of Kenya. Read More





Semien Mountains Mobile Medical Service (SMMMS)







SMMMS is a clinic that has begun operation in remote Northern Ethiopia.  They have 7 clinics scattered through the remote region and also send out backpack nurses.  CHAPS funded the training of their15 midwives to be certified to provide reversible Family Planning.  This is a classic example of how a small amount of funds; properly placed, can make a huge difference.  For $6000 all 15 midwives have been certified for Family Planning including the travel and living costs while taking the course at Gondor University.  This new skill will be in operation for the next 20 years.







SMMMS backpack nurse with new backpack






What's Next


The next goal is Basic Emergency Obstetrics and Neonatal Care (BEmONC) certification for all of the midwives and the equipment needed to provide the emergency care.  Total cost would be about $25,000 to cover 8 clinics.