SK Charity club came into being in 2008 August when a member of StocksKenya (now Wazua.co.ke) came up with an idea of establishing a channel for members to give back to the society. The idea was supported by most of the bloggers and thus materialized into a serious, established forum for bloggers with a hearts of gold seeking to empower and improve the lives of impoverished members of our society and especially vulnerable groups like orphans, the disabled and women.  
 
At that particular time in 2008, Kenya was experiencing acute drought in most parts, boiling down to food shortage even in urban areas. The cost of living had shot up with the cost of basic meals like a 2kg maize flour packet retailing at KShs.120 (USD 1.60). Maize is the staple food in Kenya.
 
Poverty remains a big challenge in Kenya with at least 46% living on less than a dollar a day. Majority of Kenyans living in urban cities live in the slums, with a good number of them being unemployed.

The main aim of the charity club was to alleviate human suffering in our society.

This was to be achieved through: 

• Feeding the hungry
• Education for disadvantaged child/ street children
• Mentoring and giving hope to the youth and children from broken homes to aim high in life
• Visiting slums and rural areas to encourage the broken hearted and hopeless
• Environment conservation through tree planting and participating in bio diversity and conservation projects
• To promote peace and cohesion through members of different backgrounds coming together to contribute positively to the society.

Coordination

The group is comprised of very friendly, dedicated and randomly selected bloggers: Leona and Vision2030 currently coordinate its activities as we await formal elections/ nominations of board members after the group is formalized-which is currently being processed.

• A Google group was set up for the Charity club to maintain the privacy of members and constant communication/ updates since not all members wanted their identities to be in the open forum that is Wazua.co.ke.
• The Google group ensures transparency is guaranteed as member’s financial contribution and how the cash is used is posted in the Google group for all to see.
• To join the SK charity Google group one has to be invited by Vision2030.
• Currently cash donations are received via Mpesa but with the help of Wazua, the Charity has plans to come up with alternative modes of payment.   

Events

To achieve the above objectives we have so far successfully organized and witnessed the materialization of the following events.

• Numerous Visits to Ruiru Rehabilitation centre to donate food, clothes and stationary, and to spend time with the children and plant trees at the Rehab centre
• Donation of food & clothes to Red Cross
• Trip to Salama Market for food donation during the severe drought. Prior to this trip, members agreed to skip lunch from Monday (30th March 09) to Friday (3 April 2009) and donate the proceeds from the foregone lunch to save some of these people for a few more days as we waited for the rains. We were able to feed 30 families for about 2 weeks each. A village head woman supervised the distribution. From casual observation, anyone would judge that the donation went to the deserving, as most of beneficiaries were elderly beyond 70yrs old. Some of the beneficiaries were informed of our arrival by 11.am on Saturday and to them it was a miracle because they said they did not have anything to eat that day. All they did in the morning was to say the Lords prayer  '.........Give us our daily bread’ and there we were with the 'daily bread’. We intervened at the right time to the right people.
  
  

• On December 26, 2009, we went to the Ruiru Rehabilitation Centre and had a Christmas donation. We also adopted one of the boys for purposes of sponsoring him through High school - On this particular event Wazua donated KShs. 5,000 for the event while a member (Njung’e) who won a KShs. 5,000 for being 2009 member of the year award from Wazua surrendered it to the Charity. Together with other members’ contributions, this was used as seed kitty to sponsor Samuel Ndung’u, a former street child from the Rehab through high school.  This sponsorship forms the basis of one of the long-term objectives of the Charity club.
  
  

Future plans

• Starting or outsourcing start-up funds and ideas for income generating and empowerment projects for the youth, disabled and disadvantaged women in our society
• A successful and far reaching mentorship program for the youth and disadvantaged children aiming to give them hope and a brighter outlook on life
• After successfully taking Samuel to school, we plan on taking more children who’re either from the streets or totally orphaned to school because we believe the biggest support we can give to them is through educating them and empowering them to be successful men and women in the future despite their bad start in life
• Job information sharing within the charity members-through the Google group
• Attendance of members events e.g. weddings, birthday parties and burials to for bonding purposes
• Bonding trips for members e.g. Nairobi National Park trips, bungee jumping, hikes, boat rides, nature walks, mbuzis, etc