The DEKA Welfare was muted in the year 2018 and came into being in August 2019, with the Welfare Constitution being enacted, approved and passed by the members. Membership was initially voluntary and open to all registered DEKA members. However various resolutions passed by the main DEKA members over the years aimed at making Welfare membership mandatory for everyone registered under DEKA/KDE.
Edwin Mitaki.
DEKA.
There are many benefits that a teacher in the Diaspora enjoys when one becomes a DEKA member. The membership constitutes a group of learned, educated, and well-traveled professionals.
Resources:
Through the different WhatsApp groups, members share various resources that are very beneficial for educators. The list includes publications, educational resources, magazines, newspapers, videos, and job vacancies, and the list is not exhaustive.
Bereavement:
When a teacher loses a loved one, all members join hands to condole with the bereaved family. When my beloved mum passed on, the moral support I received from the members was great. I received members’ financial, emotional and spiritual support through text messages, phone calls, and generous cash contributions. It dawned on me that I had a family to lean on during that difficult time of grief.
Lastly, I benefitted from the last Respect compensation from the insurance company organized by DEKA Welfare Fund. The chairman followed up with the company to ensure I was fully compensated. The money received was a significant boost to us as a family.
DEKA is a place where all teachers in the Diaspora should strive to be members. You never know when you will need the members.
I am forever grateful that I am a member of DEKA.
Ruth Adede, Bangkok, Thailand.
DEKA’s main objective was set to look into the welfare of the members who are scattered all over the world. In 2020 when COVID-19 hit and countries started to close their borders, Kenya was worse hit as its international borders were closed but worse still Nairobi was closed as the first cases were recorded in Kenya in March 2020.
In as much as many of our members were affected wherever they were, we looked back home as our brothers and sisters were suffering from losing jobs or their businesses closing.
We realized that there was a group in our society that had been forgotten. Many of the people who were sponsoring Children’s Homes could not be able to do it anymore as their incomes reduced.
It is against this background that DEKA members came together and raised funds to help one of such homes – “Pillars of Hope Children’s Home” located in Athi River just behind Daystar University. From members’ contributions, we bought foodstuffs ranging from cooking oil to beans and maize together with various toiletries needed in such a home all worth about Ksh 150,000/= which we then delivered to the home.
We thank God that we were able to raise such funds and bring tears of joy to the family running the home of about 30 children at that time ranging from 2 years as the youngest to about 17 years as the oldest.
With the DEKA NGO being set up, we look forward to doing more of this corporate responsibility activities to give back to society back home.
The members who represented DEKA in buying and delivering the foodstuffs were Joyce Mutie and Edwin Mwitaki.