About Blessed Generation
We do not offer hope. We build the conditions that make it possible.
Children supported yearly
Kenya locations
Kenyan staff
Years operating
Blessed Generation supports vulnerable children across three locations in Kenya through education, safe homes, foster care, community outreach, and daily nutrition. Around 100 qualified Kenyan staff deliver this work every day.
What we believe
Education is the key to the future
— but we look much further than just the child and primary school.
The best outcome for any child is growing up in their own family, in their own community, with the support they need to build a stable future.
Blessed Generation makes a conscious choice to continue its investment beyond primary school, to provide social-emotional guidance alongside academic learning, and to support the families children come from wherever possible. This reduces longer-term risks — school dropout, exploitation, crime — and builds lasting resilience in the communities where we work.
Our conviction
We take children into residential care only when there is no safer option, and always in coordination with Kenya’s official child protection services. Our preference is always family — keeping children in their own environment when support can make that possible, and placing them in foster families when it cannot.
The Lighthouse Village in Malindi — 14 homes where working couples take in BG children as full family members — is the clearest expression of this conviction. It is also the program that other Kenyan child welfare organizations are now visiting to study and potentially replicate.
Medical care, housing, and nutrition are provided alongside education because none of these things works without the others. A child in school but without food cannot concentrate. A child with shelter but without belonging cannot heal. BG addresses every dimension simultaneously — because partial intervention consistently fails.
What we believe
Education is the key to the future — but we look much further than just the child and primary school.
Blessed Generation makes a conscious choice to continue its investment beyond primary school, to provide social-emotional guidance alongside academic learning, and to support the families children come from wherever possible. This reduces longer-term risks — crime, early school dropout, exploitation — and builds lasting resilience in the communities where we work. We do not treat education as a product we deliver. We treat it as one dimension of a child’s development, inseparable from shelter, nutrition, healthcare, and the consistent adult relationships that make any of it mean something.
We take children into residential care only when there is no safer option, and always in coordination with Kenya’s official child protection services. Our preference is always family — keeping children in their own environment when support can make that possible, placing them in foster families when it cannot. The Lighthouse Village in Malindi — 14 homes where working couples take in BG children as full family members — is the clearest expression of this conviction. It is also the program that other Kenyan child welfare organizations are now visiting to learn from.
Where we work
Five programs. Every child covered — completely.
A child in school but without food cannot learn. A child with shelter but without belonging cannot heal. BG addresses every dimension at once — because partial intervention consistently fails.
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Education — every barrier removed, from first class to final degreen
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Safe homes — family-scale, not institutional
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Community outreach — keeping families together
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Education — every barrier removed, from first class to final degreen
01
Safe homes — family-scale, not institutional
01
Community outreach — keeping families together
How we work
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Five programs. One shared logic: address every barrier a child faces, simultaneously.
A child who has a safe home but no school fees will not finish their education. A child in school but without food cannot concentrate. A child with academic support but without social-emotional stability will not use it. BG addresses every dimension of a child’s development at the same time — not because it is ambitious, but because partial intervention consistently fails.
01. EDUCATION
Education — from kindergarten through to university
All school fees, textbooks, uniforms, and boarding costs are covered in full. BG Ruiru High School has achieved a 98% KCSE national pass rate since opening in 2015.
02. healthcare
Healthcare — regular check-ups, treatment when needed.
Medical care is provided for every child in BG’s residential and outreach programs. The outreach program extends healthcare to the caregivers of vulnerable children — because a sick grandparent who cannot access treatment is a grandparent who cannot raise grandchildren safely.
03. community
Outreach & Empowerment
Fortnightly home visits to vulnerable families — food packages, medical care, school fee support. Every child kept at home through outreach is a child who never needs a shelter place.
02. PROTECTION
Safe homes — family-scale, not institutional scale
Maximum 10 children per home, with dedicated caregivers who are consistent presences — not rotating shift workers. In Malindi, 14 Lighthouse Village homes place children within real working families.
02. PROTECTION
Safe homes — family-scale, not institutional scale
Maximum 10 children per home, with dedicated caregivers who are consistent presences — not rotating shift workers. In Malindi, 14 Lighthouse Village homes place children within real working families.
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Education — every barrier removed, from first class to final degreen
The first children are cared for in a small residential setting near Nairobi — basic shelter, food, and primary education. The name reflects a simple conviction: that these children, given the right conditions, would become a blessed generation for Kenya.
When the orphanage faced closure, Ria Fennema — a teacher from Hurdegarijp in Friesland who had first visited Kenya as a volunteer in 2000 — takes over management and moves to Kenya permanently. The organization begins to develop more structured education, qualified Kenyan staff, and a broader vision for what BG can become. Fester Medendorp joins in 2004.
Child protection services report 15,000 children in need along the Malindi coast — largely orphaned by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. BG surveys affected families and makes a discovery that will shape its entire model: many children can stay at home if their family receives targeted practical support. The outreach program is born before the shelter even opens. Land is purchased and both a shelter and a school are built within twelve months.
Child protection services report 15,000 children in need along the Malindi coast — largely orphaned by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. BG surveys affected families and makes a discovery that will shape its entire model: many children can stay at home if their family receives targeted practical support. The outreach program is born before the shelter even opens. Land is purchased and both a shelter and a school are built within twelve months.
After years of watching BG children struggle in large, impersonal boarding schools far from familiar support, BG builds its own secondary school in Ruiru. Small-scale, structured around social-emotional support as well as academics, with social workers on campus daily. The 98% national exam pass rate has been maintained every year since.
BG develops a new model for child care: family homes on the Malindi campus where working couples take in BG children as full family members. The first 12 homes are built in collaboration with the Pharus Foundation. By 2025 the village has grown to 14 homes. Other child welfare organizations across Kenya are visiting to study and potentially replicate the approach.
Some alumni are now donors — sponsoring the children who sit where they once sat. This is the clearest evidence BG has that the model works: people who grew up inside it invest in its continuation for those who follow.
Alumni story
“Being part of Blessed Generation changed my life. They gave me not just an education — but a sense of belonging and purpose.“
Accountability
40 years of showing up is the most meaningful accountability report we have.
ANBI
Fully tax-deductible for Dutch donors
BG Netherlands Foundation holds full ANBI status — the Dutch government’s verified designation for public benefit organizations. KvK 01100560 · RSIN 8145.90.998
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Volunteer-run Netherlands Foundation
The BG Netherlands Foundation has no paid staff. Every board member is a volunteer. Overhead is minimal — virtually every euro raised transfers directly to programs in Kenya.
Open
Annual reports and accounts available on request
Both BG Kenya and BG Netherlands are independently audited annually. Accounts available from info@blessedgeneration.nl. Visits to all three Kenya locations are actively welcomed.
The people
Around 100 qualified Kenyan staff carry this work forward every day. Two people from the Netherlands started it — and stayed.
The real engine of Blessed Generation is its Kenyan team: teachers, social workers, healthcare staff, house parents, administrators, and outreach workers at all three locations. They are the reason BG works. Leadership from the Netherlands built and continues to shape the programs — but the daily delivery of care is the work of the Kenyan staff who chose this as their vocation.
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The team that makes it real
Qualified Kenyan staff — the story behind every outcome BG has ever produced
Teachers, social workers, house parents, healthcare staff, outreach workers, administrators, and program managers — spread across Ruiru, Malindi, and Nyamira. These are professionals who have dedicated their careers to the welfare of Kenya’s most vulnerable children.
The organization’s outcomes — 98% exam pass rates, the Lighthouse Village model, the community school in Nyamira, the outreach program that has kept thousands of children in their own families — are their work, delivered every day by people who know the children by name.
DIRECTOR & CHAIR LADY OF THE BOARD
Ria Fennema
Hurdegarijp, Netherlands → Kenya · Since 2001
A trained teacher from Friesland who first visited Kenya in 2000 as a volunteer. When the orphanage faced closure in 2001, she took over management and moved to Kenya permanently. Over two decades later, she and her family call Kenya home. She publishes regular newsletters from the field — direct, honest accounts of the work that sponsors describe as the most grounding communications they receive from any organization they support.
Operations · BG Kenya
Fester Medendorp
Netherlands → Kenya · Since 2004
Joined Ria in Kenya in 2004 and has managed the operational, construction, and infrastructure dimensions of the organization ever since. From building classroom blocks in Ruiru to overseeing the development of the Lighthouse Village in Malindi, Fester’s contribution is foundational — if less visible than Ria’s in the storytelling. He and Ria have two children who grew up in Kenya.
STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY
A trained teacher from Friesland who first visited Kenya in 2000 as a volunteer. When the orphanage faced closure in 2001, she took over management and moved to Kenya permanently. Over two decades later, she and her family call Kenya home. She publishes regular newsletters from the field — direct, honest accounts of the work that sponsors describe as the most grounding communications they receive from any organization they support.
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Execution
Registered under
Kenya NGO Co-ordination Act
Staff
~100 qualified Kenyans
Phone
+254 720 143586
Post
P.O. Box 5236, Malindi
- Accountable to the Kenya NGO Coordination Bureau.
- Direct management of schools, residential homes, and medical clinics.
- Lead partner for local child welfare authorities in Coast and Nyanza.
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Provision
KvK
01100560
RSIN
8145.90.998
IBAN
NL59 RABO 0160 2833 45
Address
Falkejacht 25, Hardegarijp
- ANBI status — donations fully tax-deductible for Dutch donors
- Run entirely by volunteers — no paid staff, minimal overhead
- €40/month costs the average Dutch donor ~€27 net after ANBI tax benefit
Accountability
Accountability is not a policy document. It is 40 years of showing up.
Annual reports — available on request
Independent audits — both organisations
Open-door visits — come to Kenya and see for yourself
Next step
You now know who we are and what we have built. The next step is meeting the child your support would reach.
Browse the gallery of children currently waiting for a sponsor at BG Ruiru, Malindi, and Nyamira. Every profile is a real child enrolled in a real program. €40 per month covers everything they need. Tax-deductible for Netherlands donors.
