Apollo Group launches APA Apollo Foundation

Leading financial services company, The Apollo Group, has today unveiled the APA Apollo Foundation, its newly formed corporate social investment arm.

The APA Apollo Foundation intends to focus on four program areas — water security, environmental conservation, education and youth empowerment.  It was previously known as the Amini Poa Maji Maisha Trust.

Speaking during the launch, the Group CEO of Apollo, Mr. Ashok Shah said that the Foundation aims to give the Kenyan people the opportunity to transform their own lives; and emphasises the need, for people, to have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in.

“The people who seek our support want nothing for free.  We provide the necessary infrastructure, but it is the communities we work with who invest their valuable time and skills to truly help themselves.  This is in line with our vision as a group to keep putting smiles in the lives of our different stakeholders”.

The focus areas of the foundation are:

Sustainable Clean Safe Drinking Water

The foundation will continue working in the construction of Sand Dams — the most cost-effective form of rainwater harvesting.  They provide communities with a clean, local and reliable source of water even during periods of drought.  Sand Dams store up to 20 million litres of water and provide a year-round supply for up to 1,000 people.  They are also a very cost effective and require virtually zero operation and maintenance costs.

The foundation targets using sand dams to transform lives by enabling many more organisations, governments and institutions to adopt sand dams as one of the tools available for land management and the alleviation of poverty in dry lands.

“APA Apollo Foundation, since 2009, has contributed over Ksh 20 million in the construction of over 10 sand dams,” said Apollo Group Chairman and Trustee of the Foundation, Mr. Daniel Ndonye.  “The holistic approach used in development of the sand dams is teamwork between the foundation, the staff members, Utooni Development and the community.  The community is tasked with collecting stones, sand and water for construction and digging terraces to prevent silt from getting into the sand dam.  For a full day the staff members and clients visit dam site and help in the actual construction of the dam.  After the completion of the dam, the community is responsible for its maintenance.”

Some of the dams constructed between 2012-2014 include Sikika, Kwakika, Pioneer, Ngwatanio, Kyandune, Enkonerei, Mikuyu, Illimisigiyo, Kativani.  The dams were constructed for the Kyandune self-help group in Kalama, Machakos County and Mikuyu Self-help group of Kasikeu in Makueni County as well as two dams for Illimisyigio Self Help group in Mashuru, Kajiado County.

Education

APA already supports Chelata School in Runda, which previously had less than 190 marks as an average for KCPE.  However, since it started the scholarship programme the school has improved in the overall marks, achieved the best school, and last year the best girl got 415 and the boy 379.  Now several of these students have graduated from university with Honours.

Environment Conservation

The Foundation believes that sustainable environmental development and human well-being go hand in hand: that improved livelihoods don’t have to come at the expense of our environment. It has won the Total Eco Challenge for making sure that the dams they build, the work we do with Egerton University with the ‘Run for the Mau’, which raises funds for the rehabilitation of the Mau ecosystem and the Njoro River, and the many other projects we work on, has a big element of tree planting.  So far we have plant 30,000 trees.

Empowering the Youth

APA Apollo Foundation promotes sporting activities by supporting the Runda Youth Sports Association (RYSA) football team. Football is the core sporting activity of RYSA. Through football, RYSA has been able to bring together over 800 young people from Githogoro and Huruma slums.

The foundation sponsors the fees for RYSA to participate in various leagues and provides the football kits, logistics and team allowances. Though the partnership RYSA has excelled in football, today RYSA participates annually in Football Kenya Federation (FKF) leagues around Nairobi. At the last edition (2014), RYSA Senior Team was ranked 6^th at the Nairobi County Branch of the Football Kenya Federation (FKF) rankings.

They are now (2015) elevated and will be playing in the Nairobi county League.In 2014 the team participated in 24 matches and has managed to win 10 matches and drew in 7 matches. Overall the team is number six out of a league of 13 teams. In addition, APA/Apollo  organises tournaments for the team in order to boost and continue to nurture the soccer talents and positively engage the youth in Mji wa Huruma and Githongoro villages.