Rieder - Milele Coordinator

In this article, I thought I might give you a flavour of the work life of our much loved coordinator Rieder.

We have been working together for over ten years, but when we first met I doubt Rieder ever envisioned his role evolving into what it is today. In fact, I distinctly remember writing a ‘job description’ back then that sounded very specific and limited indeed - a far cry from the broad array of skills he applies these days. We thought at the outset it would simply be about paying school fees and buying uniforms. In reality, he has also needed to become specialist in HIV, drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence, contraception, pregnancy to name but a few of the more complex issues facing our families.

What would we put on that job description now, I wonder? How could we best describe his role - teacher, social worker, nurse, counsellor, play therapist, youth worker, IT technician, secretary… parent? All rolled into one?

Rieder’s workload varies through the year, with many unpredictable curve balls thrown in unexpectedly; but this is a bit of an insight into his day-to-day jobs across the calendar.

First school shoes

Starting out as coordinator with our first four sponsored children.

In the early days

Back in 2009, a very young Rieder helps the kids with their schoolwork

December

We are all buying presents and planning our Christmas dinner; but Rieder starts the end-of-term rush!

All the schools close, so in the run up to the end of term, Rieder first needs to make sure all our sponsored children have somewhere safe to go to for the holidays. For some families this is simple, for others it is much less so and requires sensitivity and excellent communication skills, as well as a good dose of ingenuity at times. He then coordinates the transport for the kids all back home to their families, meeting them off the bus where needed. He sees each and every child and collects their school reports, which he discusses with them and their parents, then again with us. He checks on any communication from their school and follows this up - it could be anything from an educational trip planned for the students in the new year, updates on their building works or requests for donations to the new science lab. He checks the child’s uniform and school equipment and makes repairs to these where he can. Then he starts preparing for the schools reopening, by scanning school fee structures and starting the ‘list of requirements’ to send to us in time for the January chaos!

January

The start of a new year and a new term in Kenya. Wow is this period busy! Rieder is working flat out, 7 days per week, late into the evening every day. All of our 18 kids move up a class, meaning many changes to school uniform colours, new textbooks and equipment needed; and that’s just the ones that aren’t changing school! Those returning to boarding schools need transport arranging and shopping to be done - stocking up on a long list of essential supplies such as washing powder, shoe polish and pencils to last them the whole term.

Negotiating a price

How else would you transport a mattress?

Those who are starting new schools are anxiously awaiting their ‘calling letters’ to tell them which school they have been accepted to. Rieder needs to access these online, print them and take them to the child’s primary school, where they are verified and stamped. He then collects the child’s individual results slip as well as the whole school results and any necessary forms to be completed - the parents on our programme often struggle with literacy and rely on Rieder to help them understand and complete these on their behalf.

For the kids that are due to go to secondary for the first time there are big shopping trips needed. Our families often have very little at home, so they will need to buy everything from soap and toothpaste to a mattress, as well as a metal box and padlock to keep it all in! Many secondary schools require a medical check up for their students before they open, so Rieder accompanies the children for the clinic. He pays their school fees at the bank and collects receipts for this, to take with them to school on reporting day.

The schools all open on different days (of course they do!) and Rieder needs to accompany our kids on their first reporting day at a new school. These are hugely busy with hundreds of parents and students, all queuing to buy their uniform, mattress and sheets, washing basins, plates, cups and bowls directly from the school. The school checks everything that every student has brought with them and will confiscate things like ‘home clothes’ which don’t meet the uniform standards and snacks from home; these things all need disposing of (by Rieder) on this day too! Rieder needs to have the child’s documents and receipts all checked with the school secretary, nipping out to make photocopies of everything at the nearest kiosk.

You might think that this all happens over a few months, that there is time for planning and trial-and-error… not so! The typical timeline from getting a calling letter to reporting day is just 1week for a primary student and 2weeks for a secondary student.

During Term Time

Things should settle down once the kids are all settled in school and have everything they need, that is until the end of term rush again in April/May and July. There is still plenty of admin to be done - printing, scanning, photocopying, collecting receipts and updating records of expenditure. Rieder attends academic clinics (similar to our ‘parent’s evenings’ and usually held termly) for every child, where he talks to every teacher about the child’s performance in their subject. Attendance at these is mandatory and many of the children on our programme either don’t have a parent to attend, or their parent doesn’t feel comfortable attending a school environment; so Rieder will go on their behalf or go with them to help them access it themselves. This is a big deal - since there is a 4000 shilling fine if a parent doesn’t attend, so he has been known to wait outside the school gates on the day to attend on a parent’s behalf if they don’t show up as planned!

Some of our families receive support from Milele to help with housing, or to start their own business. In these cases Rieder visits them to pay the rent, and to help them keep records, learn how to understand profit and loss, how to add value, advertise and save money for the next month.

Any children who are poorly on any given day of course will need to be collected from school and taken to the clinic for a check up, buying medication for them where needed and checking they are well looked after at home - Rieder will usually be the one to do this. There are also those children with more complex chronic health needs such as HIV, which need careful management and support.

Parents and children alike turn up on his doorstep when they haven’t enough money for dinner that night; or when their landlord has told them he’s knocking down their house and they have a week to move out; or when their relative has died and they simply don’t know who else to turn to. Rieder deals with them all with compassion and kindness, listening and offering sympathy as well as practical help.

“Rieder has a constantly evolving list of vulnerable children in his mind.
Spending extra time with each to make sure they’re safe, feel loved and to foster resilience”

This is all alongside communicating with us in the UK constantly, having supervision calls with me, attending training, collecting money transfers and taking lots of photos, along with a whole host of ad-hoc jobs we come up with for him to do each month!

Yes - we know he’s excellent!

I think what makes Rieder so wonderful is his sheer compassion and motivation to make the difference to our kids. With some formal and some informal training along the way, he has shown an unwavering determination to do whatever it takes to do his job to an exceptional standard. The kids need their clothing repaired? Rieder learns to sew. Parents want to start their own business? Rieder teaches them to count. He even learnt a new language in order to communicate with one of our more traditional families in their tribal dialect so that they would feel more comfortable with him.

We are so lucky in finding a sponsorship coordinator who cares so much. I fervently hope we will continue working together well into the next decade and beyond.

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Thanks to the ravages of COVID, we sadly lost a regular corporate donor which funded Rieder’s wage.

We are therefore urgently looking for a reliable funding stream to pay Rieder for the amazing work he does with our children and families.

If you think this could be you, you know of a company looking to do some corporate sponsorship, or you think you can help in any way - give me a call now on 07950329398. I would LOVE to hear from you. Thank-you, Amy

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Those of you who are friends of Milele will know we have a wonderful team of volunteers with us - sponsors and trustees… well I have the bittersweet task of announcing some changes!

Emily, Chuck, Chloe and James will this month sadly be stepping down their formal role as ‘trustees’ of Milele, although they will be most definitely still around as friends and volunteers (we know where they live so they can’t escape that easily!)

Amongst their many achievements you might remember them as the heroes of the 2018 10yr celebration ball, but they have done lots of less glamourous jobs behind the scene and will continue to be invaluable sounding boards for us going forwards.

Although we will miss their ever-present expertise, it’s hard to be sad; since they all embark on exciting new things and adventures in their own lives. We wish them SO MUCH LOVE and luck.

We won’t say goodbye - because we know you aren’t going anywhere!

Milele means forever in Swahili, but what does that really mean to Milele? That is a question that our Trustees have been pondering over the last few months. Whilst we have a wide variety of ages across our 19 sponsored young people, we are now being faced with our first batch of graduates from the sponsorship programme.

As I am sure you will have seen, Emmanuel graduated from University of Nairobi in December 2018 and if you have not seen this then please check out our blog post all about his journey here. Charo has completed some operational courses in driving heavy machinary and is on the cusp of joining the world of work and Josephine is hot on his heels and will be completing her secretarial studies in the coming few months.

Obviously, sponsorship cannot continue forever and to do so would be counterintuitive. We are supporting these young people to equip themselves with the skills they need to build a sustainable life independently.  Having said that, part of the ethos of our charity is that all the children and young people have a sense of community and family together. Which leaves us with a conundrum that sponsorship must come to an end, but we also don’t want to oust our young people from the community and support they have access to.

We are also very aware that building financially independent young adults does not mean that they will never again need extra money or support. Sometimes we are all faced with unexpected costs or perhaps we want to do some further learning or training and this all comes with a price tag.

After many discussions and head scratching, the Trustees of Milele are pleased to introduce our “Graduate Program”. The program has two primary functions.

Firstly, it is committed to maintaining support for our young adult’s emotional wellbeing and family. This means that they will continue to be a part of the Milele family and invited to any group gatherings. Perhaps being a role model for the other children in our programme, as ultimately it is their hard work and dedication that has led to their success and not the sponsorship. Most importantly we wanted to ensure the continued access to the support offered by Rieder and the comfort that they will always be part of the Milele family.

Secondly, using a portion of the incredible amount raised at our ball, we have set up a “Graduate Grant Fund”. This Grant is open to all the graduates of the sponsorship programme. In order to receive funds from the Grant they will need to complete a short application form which sets out what the need the money for, such as training course or living costs for an unpaid internship, and also how much they will need from the fund. The application is a way for our graduates to practice their skills, learn about the process of applications as well as financial planning.

As always Rieder’s Kenyan knowledge and experience is invaluable to Milele and our decision making, with the Graduate Grant being no exception to this. Rieder will be integral in not only supporting with the graduate with their application but also the evaluation of the  application in terms of assessing the viability and sustainability of the proposal in Kenya.

As Trustees we recognise that our strengths lie in the administration of the fund’s resources and the importance of local knowledge in this process cannot be understated. For example, an application to purchase solar phone chargers with a view to operating a business generating income from charging people’s phone may not make any sense when we live in a country with ready access to electricity in every home. However, when looked at from a Kenyan perspective where access to electricity and phone charging facilities can be very limited, it actually presents as an astute business plan.

Although the Graduate Grant is a new mechanism for Milele, we have already been supporting our young people with the type of activities we envisage will be perfect for the grant. For example, with obtaining their driving licence or completing some further education courses.

We are absolutely thrilled to be sharing this new plan with you all and we hope you will agree that it fits with perfectly with our vision of forever.

In the wake of the events happening in both America and around the globe following the murder of George Floyd, we want to state our support of the Black Lives Matter Movement and all fighting against inequality and white supremacist culture.

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We have discussed the issues raised by the Black Lives Matter movement with the Milele team and considered how we can ensure that our contribution is meaningful. Alongside stating our public support for the fight against inequality and injustice we have published our core values. These are the foundation on which Milele is based and will ensure that our impact is always positive, informed and lasting.

Choice

Diversity & Equality

Sustainability

Learning & Reflection

Kindness

If you would like to read more about our values you can find them here.

As always, we would love to hear from you with feedback or thoughts. You can get in touch via our contact page.