The Department of Gender and Social Services, a division of the national government, is attempting to carry out a study to evaluate the barriers and facilitators to social protection service access in Siaya County.

Kenya Society for People Living with HIV and AIDS (KESPA) will collaborate with the National Social Services Fund (NSSF) to conduct a two-month study focused on the Inua Jamii program, pensions, and services.

The goal of the study, according to KESPA Programs Officer Daniel Odipo, is to identify some of the challenges that older people 60 years of age and above have had in obtaining those services.

He said that in order to learn more about the difficulties that older and disabled people have had in receiving social protection services, they want to hire research assistants who will travel around to houses and interview these individuals.

Odipo continued, saying that the Principal Secretary of the Ministry of Labor and Social Services will receive a report on the study along with recommendations for improving the delivery of social protection services.

Speaking to an audience of senior citizens at the Bar-Ogong’o chief’s camp in the Alego/Usonga sub-county, he said that recipients of Benta Atieno’s Inua Jamii program had been facing several obstacles when trying to obtain social protection services.

In addition to pointing out the considerable distances they have had to go in order to get the cash transfer funds, they also mentioned how little Ksh. 2,000 they receive each month.

James Ochieng, the officer in charge of the Inua Jamii program in the Alego/Usonga constituency, was also present at the meeting. He seemed confident that the study, which will be carried out in the counties of Kilifi, Siaya, Embu, and Kisii in September, will aid in the improvement of their services.

When their boat overturned in the Indian Ocean, one person perished.

According to witnesses, one individual is still unaccounted for after the event that occurred in Msambweni, Kwale County, near Kinondo.

According to additional accounts, the sunken boat included at least four passengers who were rescued.

The vessel was reportedly battered by fierce seas early in the morning after becoming stranded on a reef.

Residents are advised to exercise caution when sailing due to the strong winds that are occurring in various areas of the coastal region and the Indian Ocean.

Only one week has passed since a man in Diani drowned.

A Kisumu family is seeking government help after a relative who had traveled to Qatar to work as a domestic worker died in strange circumstances.

According to reports, 30-year-old Mary Awuonda passed away a week after leaving her house, and electrocution was stated as the cause of death.

On the request of a close friend, the mother of two had left the nation on July 24th to work as a domestic helper in a private home.

Mary, a hotel management graduate, had not even get her first paycheck; according to her family, they learned of their relative’s passing only a week after she arrived in the Gulf nation.

“Kulingana na ripoti yenye tulipata huko ya post mortem ilisema ati alikuwa amepigwa na stima na hiyo document ilikuja tu hivo hakuna report ile full sasa hapo tuko na tashwishi,” said Joshua Otieno, the deceased’s brother.

“Vile Mary aliaga kuna nyanya yake mwingine alikuwa hosi vile aliskia kuna huyu mjukuu wake mwenye alikufa sasa pia anaitwa Mary alishikwa na mstuko ya moyo yeye pia akakufa sasa hapa tuko na matanga mbili,” stated Pamela Alago, the deceased’s aunt.

The body was returned home on August 19 but the family has not been able to secure funding for a third-party postmortem investigation. While juggling two funerals, Awuonda’s family is holding out hope that justice will be done in the end.

In order to prepare National Youth Service (NYS) recruits to protect the nation in an emergency, President William Ruto has ordered that they complete a required basic firearms training course.

Ruto said his administration has maintained its promise to enlist a sizable number of servicemen and women into the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) and has also assured other employment placements for NYS graduates when presiding over the 88th National Youth Service Recruits Pass-Out Parade in Gilgil on Monday.

“The NYS remains indispensable to our efforts to enhance public service delivery and national security,” Ruto stated.

The president went on to say that 447 of the 790 officers hired by the Kenya Wildlife Service were former recruits from New York State.

“This is a 56% overall living to my directive that all security agencies must give priority to our NYS men and women because of their demonstrated discipline, capability and paramilitary training,” Ruto continued.

In order ‘to ensure that they stand ready to protect the country when the necessity arises,’ the President directed relevant ministries, particularly the Interior and Defense departments, to ensure that the paramilitary training NYS recruits receive includes a basic course in firearms.

Sven-Goran Eriksson, 76, a Swedish football manager who was the first foreign manager of the England national team, passed away on Monday, according to his agent.

Before taking on the England position in 2001, Eriksson, a charismatic coach who coached Swedish, Portuguese, and Italian teams to significant championships in the 1980s and 1990s, declared earlier this year that he was terminally sick with pancreatic cancer.

Reuters was informed by his agent Bo Gustavsson that he had died early on Monday.

During the 2002 and 2006 World Cups, as well as the 2004 European Championship, Eriksson guided England to the quarterfinals. Among the players he managed were David Beckham, Paul Scholes, Frank Lampard, Wayne Rooney, and Steven Gerrard.

Due to numerous issues they claim the university is facing, Moi University lecturers began an industrial strike on Monday.

The lecturers are now demanding that the university council be dissolved due to what they perceive to be poor administration.

The national trustee Jane Michael and the chairman of the Universities Academic Staff Union (UASU) Moi university chapter, Richard Okero, led the group of dons who claimed that despite the institution not having sent its loans to the relevant banks for the previous four years, deductions were still being made. They claim that their pensions have not been disbursed either.

The academics urge the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) to investigate the purported loss of over Ksh.1 billion from the new funding scheme as soon as possible.

Until their demands are fulfilled, the lecturers have sworn not to resume their work.

Rescue and police officials said that at least 36 people, including 12 pilgrims who were attempting to reach Iran, died in two different bus accidents in Pakistan on Sunday.

When a bus crashed into a ravine close to the town of Azad Pattan, on the boundary between Punjab province and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, all 24 occupants perished.

“I have lost three members of my family,” Tara Zafar told AFP after learning of the catastrophe and making her way to the hospital.

Among the deceased were her father, sister, and one-year-old nephew.

“I hoped that at least one of them had survived. It’s doomsday for my family.”

At the scene of the accident, Umar Farooq, a senior government official from the Sudhanoti area, where the bus originated, told AFP, “24 were travelling in the bus and all 24 have died.”

Before authorities arrived, some twenty locals assisted with body recovery.

As stated by 44-year-old retired army soldier Manazir Hussain, “We carried the bodies out of the ravine wrapped in shawls and scarves.”

In a separate incident, 12 men were killed when their bus plunged into a gorge on the Makran Coastal Highway in Balochistan after being stopped from crossing into Iran.

There were no more bodies or injured individuals discovered after the bus was removed from the gorge with the aid of an army crane.

“This is a particularly treacherous tract of road, with many twists and turns. The driver was speeding and the bus fell into a deep ravine,” police official Aslam Bangulzai, who was at the scene, told AFP.

The incident happened in a mountainous region, 500 kilometers from the Iranian border town of Pishin and around 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the closest settlement, Uthal.

Senior government official in the nearby district of Gwadar, Hamood Ur Rehman, said, “The bus was carrying pilgrims on its way to Arbaeen (pilgrimage) but was turned back at the Iran border because their documents had some problems.”

In Pakistan, where safety regulations are brittle, driver training is inadequate, and transportation infrastructure is frequently in disrepair, road accidents with a high death toll are frequent.

The remains of 28 pilgrims who perished in an Iranian bus accident were repatriated to Pakistan on Saturday.

Tuesday night, the bus overturned and caught fire in front of a checkpoint in Yazd province, carrying fifty-one Pakistani pilgrims who were traveling via Iran to attend the Arbaeen commemoration in Iraq, one of the most important occasions in the Shiite calendar, according to Iranian official TV.