Kenyan NGO wins Oscar van Leer Award

The Oscar van Leer Award for 2005 has been awarded to the Kenya Orphans Rural Development Programme (KORDP) for its Community Support to AIDS Orphans project. The award will be presented at a ceremony in The Hague on 3rd November.

The Oscar van Leer Award was instituted in 1994 and is presented every two years. It honours programmes 'for excellence in enabling parents and communities to help young children realise their full potential'.

KORDP has been a partner of the foundation since 2001. Working in areas of Kenya's Western province worst affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, it strengthens the ability of families and communities to care for orphans and vulnerable children.

KORDP helps rural communities to set up early childhood development day care centres. These provide young children with nutritious meals, opportunities for social and psychological development, and pre-school learning without which many would not go on to primary school.

KORDP also trains caregivers in health, nutrition, improving food security and establishing income-generating activites. While it provides essential inputs, mobilising and empowering communities is the key to KORDP's success.

Peter Laugharn, executive director of the Bernard van Leer Foundation, said: "It gives me great pleasure to be able to showcase KORDP as an exemplar of two strands the foundation emphasises in its work with HIV/AIDS orphans and vulnerable children: a community-based approach, and emphasis on psychosocial support."

The foundation hopes that this award will contribute to raising the profile of young children on the HIV/AIDS agenda in the run-up to the XVI International AIDS Conference in Toronto in 2006.

The Oscar van Leer Award commemorates the son of Bernard van Leer, founder of the Bernard van Leer Foundation. Oscar van Leer died in 1996.