Over the last few days, our main project has been to visit as many of the children in their homes as possible. This is useful in lots of different ways; firstly if they have already received a donation from us (many have received mosquito nets in the past), we can make sure that the family still have it and are using it rather than saving it for best; as well as taking some photos for you back home to see where your money has gone. Also, it gives us a really good insight into each child’s situation and how we can best go about helping them. It also invariably enables us to identify the families who are most in need of support and we have met some families who are really struggling in their daily life. We have so far visited families with children at Victory Academy Kindergarten (kids aged 18months to 7years), Royal Academy Primary School (kids aged 18months to 13 years) and Rescue Foundation Mtomondoni (kids aged 18months to 15years).

One family we met today have a child named Munera who attends Royal Academy. She is currently living with her mother and two siblings, one of whom is severely disabled. In the same room live her aunt and her aunt’s two children as well has her grandparents. In total the family are nine and the room is roughly 2 by 3 metres.

At Rescue Foundation, we met children who are walking around 3km each way to school every day, without any shoes and at Victory we met many children who are orphans or from single parent families.

This is just a sample of the visits we have undertaken over the last few days, there are many more just like them.

After all the visits are complete, we will have the task of selecting families to receive the food parcels and mosquito nets which you have donated over the Christmas period. These will make a huge difference, so thank-you for your support.

On Monday we will be visiting children from New Life School in Mtomondoni, many of whom have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS. Keep checking the site for updates on everything we are up to.

Thanks

Amy

Hello All, Today we went into Mtomondoni, this a village which is inside the Mtwapa area and near where new light children's home is located. We visited a few old friends and made some new ones! Mtomondoni is a very poor area and a large proportion of the houses are made of wood and mud although there are some concrete buildings popping up here and there!

We attracted quite a big crowd of children who decided to follow us around the village singing and laughing. The children were fascinated by the cameras and loved to see themselves on the screen.

The area is mainly residential with only a few people working there. Those who do work in the area are often farming maize which they dry (see photo below) and pound to make flour, or selling fruits, veg and other foods at small stalls called 'duka'. 

We also managed to visit the Government school for the area, 'Mtomondoni Primary'. At Government schools tuition is provided free of charge and the pupils are required to buy uniforms and their school lunches. However the class sizes are huge a typical class size can range from 50 to 200 students. The buildings in the school are generally of a comparatively good standard but they lack any basic facilities, this includes books, desks and chairs. This means that the quality of education is very low and children often fail to reach their true potentials. 

We have also inserted a photo of a traditional 'Giriama' building, with it's low roof and wood and mud construction. The Giriama are a local tribe originating from the coastal region of Kenya, so there are many Giriama people in this area. There are many different tribes around Mtwapa and Mtomondoni who all now live together. Each tribe has their own language which is often spoken in the homes alongside Kiswahili. Children therefore already know how to speak and write in two separate languages, and those children who attend school will add English to this number at the age of 5.