Abstract

Poverty and attempts to alleviate it is an issue that has continued to generate interest of national governments and international agencies and mostly in developing countries including Kenya The Christian Church in spite of its central mandate being spiritual evangelism has continued to participate in the fight against poverty to accomplish Jesus Christ s mission to whole-heartedly serve and minister to all both rich and poor of the world This study sought to evaluate the role that the Anglican Church of Kenya ACK plays in helping to alleviate poverty amongst its faithful Specifically the study set out to investigate the type and nature of development programmes carried out by the Church in Maseno and Winam divisions of Kisumu District to assess the capacity of the ACK to manage the programmes and to establish the influence of the development programmes on the people The Church due to its proximity to the poor remains one of the major stakeholders of poverty alleviation in rural areas Hence the study made the assumption that the majority of people living in Maseno and Winam divisions are not only poor but also profess the Christian faith as adherents of this church The study was guided by the Christian theory of human development which has two basic goals to achieve life everlasting in the company of God and Christ in heaven and to do God s will in one s daily life on earth by being responsive to the needs of the poor Data was collected through a survey which comprised of responses of respondents to the questionnaires focus group discussions and existing data records of the ACK Qualitative data analysis Statistic Programme for Social Sciences SPSS was used to analyze the data The study findings revealed that the ACK has been involved in improving the quality of life and economic status of the poor through the provision of essential social services and promotion of income-generation programmes specifically in the areas of health education