AT KULEA VILLAGES, OUR BOARD OF DIRECTORS OPERATES USING JOHN CARVER'S MODEL OF POLICY GOVERNANCE. A PRIMARY COMPONENT OF THE POLICY GOVERNANCE MODEL IS DESCRIBING THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL REASONS FOR BEING IN A SET OF WHAT CARVER CALLS "ENDS STATEMENTS." OUR BOARD FOCUSES ON FORMULATING POLICIES THAT HELP US PROGRESS TOWARD THESE ENDS. THEY CAN BE UNDERSTOOD IN THREE WAYS:
1. desired outcomes
2. recipients of desired outcomes
3. relative cost
The desired outcome is what difference we expect our work to make (“as a result of everything we do, children we support will be raised in families in safety and with food, education and medical care”). Thinking about the intended desired outcomes, who are the beneficiaries? Vulnerable children. Finally, we think of relative cost, asking if what we are creating is worth all the effort and resources necessary to make it happen. We believe the life of a child is worth whatever it takes.
Because, the Ends Statements are fundamental to all that we do, we want to share them here.
Our vision is a community where all children have a safe home, food, education and medical care. To accomplish this vision we have created ends statements that direct all of our actions and investments.
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Kulea Villages' social workers work in conjunction with government hospitals and social workers to identify children in need of support for school and infants in need of nutritional support. Our top priorities include ensuring that children are raised by family and that they are safe. In addition we help with nutrition, school fees and supplies, food support and health insurance.
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Kulea Villages operates three distinct programs to address the above needs: Child Sponsorship, Feeding Program and Maisha Matters Project. Each program is briefly described below.
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Through Child Sponsorship, Kulea Villages provides a child with school fees & supplies, food support and health insurance until the family can. Our social workers counsel with the family and offer training to those ready to start a small business. This moves them toward independence and we work with them to slowly take over paying some of the expenses for their child.
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Through our Feeding Program, Kulea Villages is able to provide immediate food relief when social workers visit a home and find a desperate situation (i.e. no food in the house). This urgent need must be covered before we provide counseling and look for solutions to the bigger problem of living in abject poverty. The Feeding Program also provides support to a preschool in Kenya offsetting some of the costs of providing breakfast and lunch daily.
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Through our Maisha Matters Project, Kulea Villages helps Tanzanian families care for their children in their own home, though the mother has died in childbirth. Extended families are there, but lack the resources needed to buy infant formula. We give initial life-saving support for the baby (free formula) and later, business training for the caregiver, helping the family move out of abject poverty. Maisha Matters also assists mothers of mal-nourished multiples (triplets, quadruplets, etc.) with supplementary formula. Babies admitted to Maisha Matters are 0 - 6 months in age and admitted only by referral from a government hospital or social welfare.
