Scope of CNHF Operations

New Layer

We are passionate about helping the underprivileged communities in Kenya.

About CNHF

Kenya is a low-middle income nation located in East Africa. The country has a population of about 47 million people. Her terrain rises from a low coastal plain on the Indian Ocean to mountains and plateaus at its center. Most Kenyans live in the highlands, where Nairobi, the capital, sits at an altitude of 5,500 feet.

West of Nairobi the land descends to the Great Rift Valley, a 4,000-mile (6,400-kilometer) tear in the Earth’s crust. Within this valley in the deserts of northern Kenya are the jade-green waters of famous Lake Turkana. Most of the Northern and Eastern Parts of Kenya are either Arid or Semi-Arid Lands (ASAL) and are inhabited by pastoral communities.

Kenya consisted of eight provinces until the new administrative structure in 2010 was adopted and 47 counties were established as a result, and this new administrative structure came into force in 2013.

CNHF intervention programs target 5 Counties.

Garissa, Wajir, and Mandera – in the North Eastern part of Kenya,
Nairobi, located in the heart of Kenya, and
Tana River – located in the eastern part of Kenya although administratively it is one of the counties in the Coast region.

For purposes of our interventions, we will refer to the four counties (Wajir, Garissa, Madera and Tana River as ASAL Counties)

North Eastern Kenya

A large portion of Northern Kenya is either semi-arid or arid. The soils are sandy and hardly any vegetation grows there save for a few scattered thorny trees. The North Eastern counties are largely occupied by the Kenyan-Somali communities.

In the North and North Eastern regions of Kenya, nearly 70% of residents live in poverty and have poor access to basic services. Frequent droughts pose a significant threat to livestock, the main source of livelihood for nearly all of the people who live in this area. Socio-economic indicators fall significantly below the national average; for example, the female literacy rate is 41%, well below the national average of 89%.

Nairobi County

Nairobi, which is the capital city of Kenya, is facing rapid urbanization. Yet despite this, the divide between rich and poor is growing wider with 60 per cent of residents living in slums with no or limited access to the most basic services. Urban poverty is set to be Kenya’s defining crisis over the next decade if it is not urgently addressed. The crammed-up conditions and open sewers in the slum areas pose great health risks to the inhabitants. Because of poverty, children in these slums barely attain any meaningful education and end up in crime in the midst of poverty.

Tana River County

Named after the longest river in Kenya – Tana River, the county’s main economic activities are farming and nomadic pastoralism due to the dry conditions and erratic rainfall patterns. For many years the inhabitants have been faced with starvation, inadequate health facilities, dis-empowerment, insecurity and lack of information dissemination.