At 92, having buried five of her seven children, Elena Opundo is given a new home

Elena Adera Opundo, a 92-year-old widow in Kanyadoto Ward, Homa Bay County, has lived through the deaths of five of her seven children. Her family and neighbours gathered to watch as she received a house built for her by the Widows Empowerment Programme, in place of the worn-out dwelling she had lived in for years.

For years she had lived in a house that was falling apart. The new one was built from the ground up: foundation, walls, rooms and roof. Ayugi Victor, who coordinates the programme, led the ceremony and handed the house over to her.

Of her seven children, only two are still alive. The research does not say how the other five died. It does show what surrounds her. Homa Bay has one of the highest HIV rates in Kenya, and many families there have lost the adults in their middle years who would normally support both the old and the young. In a household like that, it often falls to a grandmother to keep things going, whatever her age.

The programme runs under the patronage of Interior Principal Secretary Dr Raymond Omollo. It builds houses, but that is only part of its work. In Nyanza it is organised around widows' groups, with a target of three groups in each ward. The groups receive water tanks, tree seedlings and plastic chairs. Some rent out fifty to a hundred chairs at a time for funerals and other gatherings. That money comes back to the group, and in a region with so many funerals, the demand is steady.

In Migori County, the Uchumi Widows Empowerment Group used a grant of Ksh 100,000 to buy chairs for hire and then set up a rotating savings and loan scheme. The programme also offers counselling, skills training, legal advice on widows' rights, and university sponsorships for their children.

Many of the women are old. Consolata Achieng', 85, received a house in Rang'wena Village in Homa Bay Town. Roselida Atieno, 73 and visually impaired, received one in Sota Village, Rangwe Constituency. Others are young. In Awendo last year, Rose Obuya, a 38-year-old widow, received a furnished house and a promise that her son's school fees would be paid.

In Kisumu, Eunice Ogallo, 63, described her life before the programme built her a house. She and her three grandchildren had slept in the same shelter as her cows.

Elena Opundo's story is shorter in the telling. She had a house that was failing, and now she has one with a sound roof. Her neighbours came to see it handed over.