After a 3 hour drive through traffic that moved, when it moved at all, as slow as mud, I arrived at Ray of Hope located on the edge of Nairobi's Kawangware slum. One moment you are on the road in front of private homes with massive brick walls and private schools and in the next block you are here:
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| Kawangware |
The offices are located just behind the picture, under a modest sign:
The Centre has a small pharmacy that consists primarily of HIV and TB medications and anti-biotics. It includes examination rooms, a delivery room and 4 beds. It is open 24/7.
This baby was born in the clinic last night.
The Centre has a Community program for HIV positive women in the Kawangware neighborhood. That program has its own stories, and I'll make a separate post about it later.
But the school! I wasn't prepared for the school. The children greeted me with recitations and songs. There are 25 at the Centre right now in two classrooms in grades equivalent to our 1-5.
There are two warm, engaging and caring classroom teachers, Evelyn and Alfred, and the computer teacher, Reuben, whose passion for what he is doing with the children is palpable.Reuben's Computer Room
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| Reuben's Computer Room |
The children come from the slum. Most of them have only one parent or most often, neither. Some of them live with guardians who are not family, and may be one of 10 kids in a household. There are two siblings who have their last meal when they leave school on Friday and their next when they arrive the next Monday morning. One child currently has no placement, and the Ray of Hope staff are taking turns caring for him.
His mother lived in a village in rural Kenya. She had three children when her husband died. She fled to Nairobi with her children when she was going to be "inherited by the clan," which meant she was going to her husband's brother. She remarried and became HIV infected. She had this child, but died soon after. Her other children will not care for the little boy for reasons that are not clear.
This organization makes a difference. Every single day. Its small staff work incredible hours for minimal and sometimes no pay. Florence, Rosemary, Hendricka, Solomon, Evelyn, Alfred, Reuben. They wear their hearts on their sleeves and they stole mine.
It takes about $60 a month for the Centre to place a child in a secondary boarding school; that includes the cost of supplies and uniforms. A while back, the Centre had 50 students. It successfully found sponsors for 25 of them.
Here are two of the little girls who need a sponsor:
His mother lived in a village in rural Kenya. She had three children when her husband died. She fled to Nairobi with her children when she was going to be "inherited by the clan," which meant she was going to her husband's brother. She remarried and became HIV infected. She had this child, but died soon after. Her other children will not care for the little boy for reasons that are not clear.
This organization makes a difference. Every single day. Its small staff work incredible hours for minimal and sometimes no pay. Florence, Rosemary, Hendricka, Solomon, Evelyn, Alfred, Reuben. They wear their hearts on their sleeves and they stole mine.
It takes about $60 a month for the Centre to place a child in a secondary boarding school; that includes the cost of supplies and uniforms. A while back, the Centre had 50 students. It successfully found sponsors for 25 of them.
Here are two of the little girls who need a sponsor:
They've got one now.
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