About Us

Who We Are:

The Isaka Memorial Foundation is a 501(c) (3) non-profit organization registered in the USA that was founded in 2006 by Juma Achoki & Mary Otieno. Due to their personal experience losing brothers and sisters to the AIDS pandemic in Kenya they set out to help children orphaned by AIDS. The idea of starting the first center to cater for the Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVCs) comes from personal encounters with AIDS orphans. The main driving force behind this foundation emanates from our deep spiritual belief that we are our brothers’ keepers, hence, our duty to provide assistance to the unfortunate in our societies. IMF currently supports Nyamila Community Center, which is managed and run by a local committee and a paid Manager from the community. The Center is located in Siaya district which is 20 miles from Lake Victoria, near the port city of Kisumu, Nyanza province, Kenya. This is one of the most economically depressed regions, with the highest prevalence of HIV in Kenya. The center does not institutionalize the children, but rather supports the OVCs within their own families at home or in boarding schools, and efforts are made to try and place children without surviving parents within extended families.

 

What We Do:

The Isaka Memorial Foundation’s (IMF) goal is to ensure that AIDS orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs) have access to essential services in economically depressed communities. The services include: education, medical care, nutrition and food security, water and sanitation and income generating activities for economic empowerment. Early on, the foundation identified that a major problem was malnutrition and began to provide basic food items every two weeks. A medical camp was then set up to help manage the many illnesses, mostly coming from waterborne bacteria, every three months bringing in Doctors and medical staff to examine, test, and treat the illnesses. Then the foundation got a major sponsor called Alicia Keys foundation Keep a Child Alive. This gave us the opportunity to develop the Nyamila Community Center for Children, drill water well, and purchase a van for the Center. Our strategy is to harness existing community resources including local health facilities,  as well as the donations it receives from well-wishers to break the vicious cycle of poverty and of acquiring HIV, and to mitigate the impact of AIDS.

Juma Achoki is the President & Co-Founder of Isaka Memorial Foundation. Mr. Achoki works as a Consulting Engineer with Opus Inspection for the State of North Carolina.

Dr. Mary Otieno is the Co-Founder of Isaka Memorial Foundation. Dr. Mary Oriento is currently the United Nations Population Fund (UN FPA) Country Representative in Zambia.