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.

Our co-ordinator Rieder has just landed back in Kenya after a wonderful 3 weeks here in the UK. We asked him to write a brief update for the website to share his experience and some of his highlights from his trip with you. 

"I was happy to see Amy and Rich on my arrival, despite being a long journey. Amy and Rich managed to organise a lot of training for me and that was really important in my work. 

I learnt a lot of new things I can use in my job from each training and also met some of the sponsors, which was really good for me to share with them about the kids they sponsor and their families.

I had good times throughout my stay in the UK for those three weeks. I was really pleased to see how people were kind to me. ” 

While he was here in the UK we were able to organise the following training courses for Rieder, all with qualified professionals or specialist organisations. All were excellent teachers and all provided fantastic opportunities for him to grow and develop:

• Building Resilience with vulnerable families

• Adolescent relationships, Contraception and Sexual health

• IT - maintenance and troubleshooting

• Safeguarding Children

• Organisation and Time Management

• Group Dynamics and running a successful youth group

• Working with vulnerable young people

• Education and non-traditional learning styles and techniques

• Business mentoring and developing a Business Plan

• Play and Interaction with 3-5 year olds

THANK-YOU to all the contributors and everyone who made this training possible for him - it will have a hugely beneficial impact on Milele in the years to come.

Rieder speaking at the 10 Year Celebration Ball

“The 10 year's celebration of Milele Program was one of my best memories I will ever keep. It was amazing to see how people supported Milele in every way they can to make it successful. 

As I travel back home, I know saying goodbye is always hard, but I am more confident and well equipped with knowledge which will help me transform the loves of our kids and ensure they have a brighter future ahead. 

Thanks to everyone for being welcoming towards my visit. I really appreciate everything you have done for me throughout my stay in the UK. 

I will always do my best in my job and help all the kids

Byeee!!!"

Hi All, As we approach Milele's 10th anniversary we have been thinking about what Milele has achieved so far and how we define success.

The most obvious measure of success is academic achievement. When the children sponsored by Milele get top grades in a school or university that they would not have been able to attend without sponsorship then we know that Milele is making a big difference in that child's life.  We are endlessly proud of the children sponsored by Milele and they consistently surpass our initial expectations but Milele is not an academic scholarship. We do not consider aptitude for education when children are sponsored so it seems unrealistic that every child will be top of their class in every subject.

The Milele mission statement talks about 'facilitating choice' and perhaps this is more what we are really aiming for. Enabling children to have some level of control over their lives and the ability to make real choices about what they want to do. For so many children across the world their path in life can seem predetermined, reliving their parent's struggles and perpetuating the cycle of poverty.

Milele Mission Statement

For the children on the Milele programme, we hope that they are able to see beyond their immediate situation and imagine themselves having alternative lives. When they are able to do this we feel that they will be able to make an informed decision about their future and make active choices about what they want to do in life. It is perfectly possible that they make the decision to continue living in the family village and work in the family trade but the important point is that they had alternative options and they chose that life.

As Emmanuel Kai approaches the end of his university degree he is starting to think about what he wants to do in life. Having lived in Nairobi for the past few years he may have got a taste for big city life and choose to stay living in Nairobi, or perhaps he will want to go and explore other cities across the world or maybe he will want to move back towards his family and use the skills he has learnt at university on a project closer to home. The point is that whatever he chooses to do he has been able to make an active choice about his life.

I'm proud of all of our children and know that by being part of Milele they are all exposed to more options in life and that the choice of where they go will be in their hands!

Richard

Hi All, Back in 2008 Amy and I founded Milele as a way to help children from difficult backgrounds in Kenya to access high quality education. We were young, naive and optimistic; with the help of our family and friends we managed to scrape together the money we needed to get Milele started and began sponsoring the first 4 boys.

Over time, Milele has grown from our original group of 4 boys to 19 children and whilst our family and friends are still being just as amazing as ever, we have added a wonderful group of new sponsors and supporters who help us to keep Milele going.

We have also been incredibly fortunate to be able to employ Rieder as a full time sponsorship coordinator to manage sponsorship on a day to day basis, provide support to more vulnerable families and make sure we are always doing the best for our sponsored children.

Milele will officially be 10 years old in September 2018 and we would love to get together will all of the people who have helped us over the years to celebrate our collective achievements and raise some money for the exciting years ahead.

Milele 10 year ball invitations

We have sent out invites to all of our sponsors and supporters (so if you haven't received one please get in touch and we'll arrange for a replacement to be sent) and we would now like to extend the invitation out to anyone who is interested in finding out a little more about Milele and helping us raise some money for future children.

The event is being held at Dixie Pavilion in Market Bosworth on the 7th of July 2018, tickets are £60 each and can be bought directly from Amy or myself. We would love to have a room full of people so please consider bringing friends and family with you so we can celebrate together.

Thanks for your support!

Richard