Tag Archives: opportunity

The average American doesn’t have to think much about how he will provide an education to his children. Our public school system provides many of our children with an education courtesy of tax dollars, and we’ve grown to take it for granted. In Kenya, however, school is a privilege, not a right. If you can pay to send your children to school, they go. If not, then they’re almost certainly looking at a bleak future of poverty.

Msamaria is a community center for street children in the Karen and Kibera area of Nairobi, Kenya. Its primary school, St. Nicholas School, educates both boarding and day students, and Children Incorporated supports 21 of those students.

Msamaria is a community center for street children in the Karen and Kibera area of Nairobi, Kenya. Its primary school, St. Nicholas School, educates both boarding and day students, and Children Incorporated supports 21 of those students.

On our first day in Nairobi, we plan to visit Msamaria, and St. Nicholas’s director, Naomi, picks us up at our hotel. Msamaria is only about five kilometers away, but the ever-present Nairobi gridlock makes it seem much farther. When we arrive, I’m immediately struck by how beautiful and well-kept the property is. I learn that it was bought by the Anglican church in 1986 from an American who had built her home on the grounds— a home that’s still used for board meetings and other events. Each building on the compound is graceful, with nice tile floors and surrounded by lush greenery. It’s very clear from the first that Naomi and her staff make every possible effort to keep their program running smoothly. Considering the slums that we’ve already toured, this is a 180-degree turn for Nairobi street kids.

We meet our social worker, Caroline, who works closely with sponsored children, along with the headteacher, Phantes. They talk to us about St. Nicholas’s formal education (kindergarten through eighth grade) — admission is application-based, giving concerned community members an opportunity to recommend children from the Kibera slum. Caroline reviews the applications and makes home visits to get to know the children better. Some are orphaned, some are abandoned and all are struggling to survive. These are absolutely the most desperate children I’ve encountered on our trip.

For that reason, St. Nicholas School has found a way to eliminate fees and break down barriers for Nairobi’s poorest and loneliest children.

With a self-sustainability program unlike any I’ve seen in Kenya thus far, St. Nicholas supports its students by selling bottled water. Naomi, who is one of the sweetest, toughest, and most hard-working people I’ve ever met in my life, took out a loan to start a bottled water factory. They pump water directly from the property, using a borehole and a motorized water pump, and the $2,000 they make per month goes towards paying the staff, supporting the programs, and feeding the children.

If that weren’t impressive enough, Naomi tells us about the school’s agricultural program, which grows maize, carrots, and tomatoes. Selling some of those vegetables along with milk from cows on the property (and consuming the rest), the school is able to supplement its income and stay the course on its commitment to a no-fee structure.

Our favorite part of each visit is, of course, getting to meet the children themselves. Two Children Incorporated sponsored children speak to us excitedly about soccer and school. Both are orphans, both have grown up at Msamaria, and both were very interested in sending greetings and thanks to their sponsors.

It feels good to see sponsor support at work here at Msamaria. We’ve provided mosquito nets, items for personal hygiene, school supplies, and food. When students age out of St. Nicholas and begin attending a local high school, they will need funding to continue their studies. The more children we are able to get into schools like St. Nicholas, the more opportunity they have for an education and a chance at rising above poverty.

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HOW DO I SPONSOR A CHILD IN KENYA?

You can sponsor a child in Kenya in one of three ways – call our office and speak with one of our sponsorship specialists at 1-800-538-5381, email us at sponsorship@children-inc.org, or go online to our donation portal, create an account, and search for a child in Kenya that is available for sponsorship.

SPONSOR A CHILD

It’s Sunday, and the students of the Materi School for Girls are still in uniform, singing songs in the shade or studying in the grass. Everyone seems to be resting, even the cows and pigs that the school raises for milk and meat, and even the large soccer field nearby.

When Brother John Konzka founded the Materi School in a village called Taraka, he envisioned a place where young Kenyan girls could access the world outside their household spheres.

These young women are often far from home, only seeing their families on breaks (or, for the very lucky, on weekends). When Brother John Konzka founded the Materi School in a village called Taraka, he envisioned a place where young Kenyan girls could access the world outside their household spheres. As an American missionary and teacher in Kenya, he’d seen firsthand the leadership roles women were taking within their families and knew that with more opportunities for female education would come more opportunities for Kenyan families.

Carrying on Brother John’s Vision

Luis worked with Brother John until the latter’s passing in 2014, but I can only rely on his legacy to get to know him. Since his death, there have been a number of changes, and this is our first visit since those changes have taken place. The Materi School has closed its middle school, since a good high school is highly valued in Kenya and can sustain itself on school fees. Brother John had been an excellent fundraiser and organizer, and due to his tireless efforts, the campus is enormous with a spacious landscape and many buildings. But now, the situation is less solid, and we’re here to see how we can help.

We meet Sebastian, the school’s director and principal, who fills us in. There are 1,000 young women living on the property full-time. They see their families about three times a year at the end of each term. Nursery-age girls also come to Materi, but they return to their nearby homes each day. Children Incorporated supports the smaller students, as well as students who attend the local primary schools, and we help with the fees for high school students.

Meet the Families

One of those students, Vero, lets us come with her on a trip to visit her mother. We pile into a truck with Vero, the driver Jambo, and Harriet and Anne, Materi employees and our tour guides for the day. It’s a bumpy ride to Vero’s house, which is only a few kilometers away. Recent flooding has caused huge ditches on either side of the road, making driving tough, and we’re relieved to arrive. Even though Vero lives much closer than many of her classmates, the conditions of the roads and the availability of transportation makes her visits home few and far between. Her mother embraces her tightly, and Luis and I are very touched.

The house has packed dirt floors, which Vero’s mother is having trouble keeping from turning into mud, which could seriously affect the house’s structure. She lives there with Vero’s sister and an aunt. There’s more family nearby, with small cousins roaming the property.

But as always, I’m struck by the kindness and hospitality of everyone we meet.

Our next stop is the house of Skeeter and Salome, two girls who are close in age but not sisters (Salome is Skeeter’s aunt). They live with Skeeter’s grandmother, who is Salome’s mother, and the two girls walk the 40 minutes to school together each day. Anne shows me evidence of other ways that Children Incorporated students benefit—their houses tend to have more necessities like mosquito nets and bedding. Because at school they’ve learned how to take care of themselves and their houses, they tend to bring that sense of order back home, keeping their houses neater and more organized than some of their neighbors’.

Before we finish our voyage, we walk down a narrow path through a cornfield to the home of a primary school student and her family. Her mother has a large goiter on her neck that’s giving her trouble with eating and talking, and the family doesn’t have enough money for even the simple surgery it would take to remove it.

In many ways, this trip has been more difficult for me because of the deteriorated circumstances of so many of these children. But as always, I’m struck by the kindness and hospitality of everyone we meet. While we struggle to make sense of what feels like a hopeless battle against poverty, the students, families, and staff at Materi School for Girls continue to keep their heads up and their minds active.  

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HOW DO I SPONSOR A CHILD IN KENYA?

You can sponsor a child in Kenya in one of three ways – call our office and speak with one of our sponsorship specialists at 1-800-538-5381, email us at sponsorship@children-inc.org, or go online to our donation portal, create an account, and search for a child in Kenya that is available for sponsorship.

SPONSOR A CHILD

School lets out every day at 4 o’clock at Dandora Community Center, but the kids tend to hang around until long after 6.

Luis pointed it out to me when we returned to the school after visiting the Dandora slum — children milled about on the property, still playing games with one another, even though school had been over for quite some time.

Sheltering the most vulnerable

Dandora provides meals, healthcare, and an education for children in Kenya.

About 400 children attend school at the Dandora Community Center. The school serves children from primary all the way to high school, but not everyone can afford education. The cost of education is high in Kenya, and even higher if children are in need of boarding because they have no home. Forty-five children board here, all orphans with no family at all, making them among the most vulnerable in the city.

Since social services don’t exist on a government level, the administrators at schools such as St. John’s and Dandora take it upon themselves to seek out these youths. It makes you wonder what life must be like for the children who aren’t found in the slums, who wander the streets lost and alone, with no guidance in life.

It’s not hard to imagine why the children linger. Their homes, if they have them, are in the slums. It’s very dark and crowded, and there is little to do as the day turns to night. Staying at school is not only appealing, but it’s also the best option. At school, your friends are there to make you laugh, and your teachers motivate you. It’s a safe place to escape the crushing weight and real physical danger of the slums. I wouldn’t run home after school either.

Healthcare for everyone

Luis and I are at the Dandora Community Center to check out recent renovations to the clinic that Children Incorporated funded back in March. The clinic has been under renovation ever since, so the children and the community have not had access to it, but it will be up and running soon. Getting the doors open again is important because the children have nowhere else to go for the treatment of colds, stomach issues, or wounds. Left untreated, very common illnesses could cause major complications or even death. In the slums, there are no other options for treatment — the few clinics like this one are the only way anyone will ever get medical help.

And it’s not just minor ailments and injuries — Kenyans have to worry about diseases, like dengue and malaria, that most Westerners never have to think about at home. It is a major public health problem in this region — and it is scary to think about.

It’s the only place they can get help — and get away from the weight of poverty and hopelessness.

Simple items like mosquito nets can make the difference between getting an education or fighting for your life. Children who are healthy can go to school — if they can afford it. Those who are stricken with malaria or dengue simply lie on cots and hope just to survive.

Those nets keep the mosquitoes — and thus the diseases — at bay, but they are hard to come by in the slum. Each year, Children Incorporated sends funds to Dandora to provide mosquito nets. They have a major impact at a minor cost; each net costs less than $10. Our goal is to purchase 1,200 of them this year.

Filling in the cracks

Throughout the day as we visit the Dandora Center, we speak with James Ngura, our volunteer coordinator, about the challenges he faces. James explains to us that his biggest obstacle is the workload — keeping up the finances and raising more funds at the same time is a major undertaking. I am not surprised to hear this — James and the staff at Dandora work tirelessly to grow their programs — especially those services provided at the clinic.

As we enter the clinic, it’s easy to see how hard they’ve been working. The building is beautiful. It looks almost new with a fresh coat of paint and new tiles on the floors. I’m reminded of the renovations at the Montero school we visited in Bolivia. The upgrades aren’t just cosmetic — they make it possible for our volunteer partners to help more children. If funding continues, the renovations at Dandora will allow James and his team to double the number of patients the clinic can see in the next year.

The clinic building and Dandora as a whole are almost a respite site for the children here. It’s the only place they can get help — and get away from the weight of poverty and hopelessness. And while the team is working to fix the cracks in the clinic walls, they’re also working to fix the cracks in children’s lives. It’s a long and difficult process, but even before it’s complete, the results are becoming clear.

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HOW DO I SPONSOR A CHILD IN KENYA?

You can sponsor a child in Kenya in one of three ways – call our office and speak with one of our sponsorship specialists at 1-800-538-5381, email us at sponsorship@children-inc.org, or go online to our donation portal, create an account, and search for a child in Kenya that is available for sponsorship.

SPONSOR A CHILD

Luis and I landed in Nairobi around 6 p.m. As we drove through the city from the airport to get to our hotel, I was surprised to see how developed Nairobi was, especially compared to Addis Ababa. Huge billboards selling bottled water towered over newly built roads, and the sidewalks were lined with green landscaping. We passed tall, gleaming buildings in the city’s business district which reminded me of an American city.

MILES AND MILES 

What did not remind me of America was the trip to St. John’s Community Center the next morning. Traffic in Nairobi is terrible at most times of day, and it took us two-and-a-half hours to drive 4 km. On the way, we passed one of the many slums in Nairobi — the Pumwani slum — which we would be visiting later that day. The slum seemed to go on forever as we drove past. For miles we saw shacks crammed together in tight rows.

The city of Nairobi is popularly known as the “Green City in the Sun,” but driving through the endless Pumwani slums, the poverty is heartbreaking, even compared to slums in Addis Ababa and to refugee camps in Uganda. I started to feel overwhelmed, as though maybe I wasn’t prepared for what we were going to see.

Forty years of service

St. John’s Community Center is a primary school located directly across from the Pumwani slums. When we arrived, we met our coordinator, Peter, who is the director of the school. Peter is a soft-spoken and kind man in his 40s, with a boyish face and wide grin. He and Luis have been working together for a long time — St. John’s is one of our oldest affiliate schools internationally. For more than 40 years, Children Incorporated has sponsored children here.

The school enrolls 200 children on a yearly basis. Children not only learn academics, but are also taught trades like woodworking, metalwork, sewing, and cooking so they have skills they need to get jobs when they graduate. As we soon discover on our home visits in the Pumwani slums, it’s important to give children an opportunity to make money and hopefully get out of their current living situation. After seeing the school, we make our way out of St. John’s with Peter, a few of our sponsored children, and some of the school staff. I am expecting to see some harsh living conditions for these children.

NAVIGATING THE MAZE

As soon as we crossed into the slums, my fears became a reality. The slums were worse than I had anticipated. The mud roads were filled with people in every direction. Children played in the streets, women washed clothes in large bins near trash-filled ditches, and men repaired broken motorbikes outside of small, rundown shacks. Some people pushed carts of scrap metal for recycling, and others scavenged through piles of garbage that littered the sidewalks. Larger homes had been broken into smaller sections and added onto over and over again. Materials such as tin and wood were used to create small, make-shift rooms where families lived together, sometimes multi-generationally. They were literally living on top of one another.

Between 70,000 and 100,000 people live in Pumwani, most in houses that are the size of an American bathroom. They have no running water, very little electricity and no means to cook or wash indoors. It is claustrophobic to walk around in the slum, even though we are outside, and it is very dangerous. Crime is rampant because young men who have no education and no work get involved with drugs and crime to make money.

It is amazing to watch the children make their way through the slum. They seem to know their way intuitively. Of course, they do it every day of their lives, but to me, it’s very confusing.  The children duck under metal sheets and squeeze between buildings that are barely wide enough for them to fit.

a stitch in time saves a life

The slums are so packed and so hot that it feels as though the world is crushing down on me. There is no escape from the noise and the filth; it feels hopeless here, and there doesn’t seem to be a way out. The people here are closed in, isolated, and the children have nowhere to go. Even if they could get out, where they would go and what would they do?

Just as things appeared to be all too hopeless, we met Mwanaharusi. We were brought to the home of this former Children Incorporated-sponsored child who had graduated from St. John’s Center a number of years ago. Mwanaharusi’s sponsor helped her through school, and soon after graduating, she was able to save money to purchase a sewing machine. She has turned her talent into a business and makes a living fixing garments for other people living in the neighborhood.

The mud roads were filled with people in every direction. Children played in the streets, women washed clothes in large bins near trash-filled ditches.

She works out of her home, which is a dark, one-room shack. As we watch, Mwanaharusi sits at a small table, demonstrating how her machine works. It takes a long time to make garments because there is little room for her to spread out; the foot-powered sewing machine takes up most of the room she shares with her mother and grandmother. A couch and one bed fill the floor space. As Luis and I sit and watch her, a few neighbors come by, eager to have her repair their clothes. It is obvious that her work is in demand and she has picked a good business to start in this area.

A long, slow climb up

Before we left, Mwanaharusi brought over something she had sewn – a beautiful, brightly colored shirt. She told us that she had made it for her sponsor and asked for us to deliver to him back in the United States. I don’t know the going rate for a shirt in Pumwani, but considering the quality and care it took to make, Mwanaharusi’s gift speaks volumes of what her sponsor means to her — and that breaking the cycle of poverty doesn’t happen overnight.

Child sponsorship doesn’t guarantee that a child will overcome the crushing poverty we saw in Pumwani, but it does provide an education, which is their only shot at getting out of the slums.

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HOW DO I SPONSOR A CHILD IN KENYA?

You can sponsor a child in Kenya in one of three ways – call our office and speak with one of our sponsorship specialists at 1-800-538-5381, email us at sponsorship@children-inc.org, or go online to our donation portal, create an account, and search for a child in Kenya that is available for sponsorship.

SPONSOR A CHILD