Karen lives here with her six children.

Twenty Kenyan shillings equates to about 12p. That’s the weekly contribution expected from members of the Lianda Widows Group and five similar groups in a rural community beside Lake Victoria, Kenya.

For Karen Adoyo Odoyo it is too much. And the twenty or so other women in the group accept that. They know she has six children to feed. They know she is too frail to work. They know she has no livestock of her own. And they are willing to carry her.

“The strength of this project lies in the community which it builds,” says Balint Lazlo Balint who helped the Lianda widows set up a communal poultry farming project with start-up funding provided by your gifts to Blythswood’s gift catalogue.

“They provide Karen with a weekly supply of eggs, adding vital protein to her children’s diet. Profits from egg sales are used to buy maize for her family, and to purchase essential medicine when she or her children fall sick.

“Instead of excluding her, the group acts as her safety net. The poultry project enables the women to support Karen as a disabled member, even although she is not fit to work alongside them. It is her social security.”