Hello everyone! We are now updating the website on the super fast computors and using wonderful internet connections of England, which means you will doubtless be inundated with news of the trip!! So, on the final Saturday of the trip, we took the four sponsored boys to meet their younger sisters Dama, Karembo, Amina and Agnes at another children's home called Riziki. Riziki is situated further up the coastline in a rural area near Kilifi town. The journey there only took around half an hour since we were lucky and managed to find a large bus which didn't stop too often! The boys were pretending it was all perfectly normal and that they were just too cool for words...but were clearly secretly thrilled by the big bus and the speed they were moving at; craning their necks to look out of the window and pointing and chattering excitedly as we passed recognisable places near their homeland.

We arrived at the stop and walked down the track to Riziki, the boys exclaiming at the size of the place! Its a very large children's home with more than 80 children staying there and a large farm and a nursery school on site. The boys met with their sisters and I got my first chance to see the girls again since i took them to Riziki a year ago! I must say all of us developed very watery eyes to see the family meeting up again and the excitement of the children to swap stories about their new home.

The boys had been given some sweets before we left for Riziki, and without our knowledge had quietly slipped them into their pockets, so when we arrived they pulled them out and immediately began to share them out among the girls, bringing yet another tear to my eye!

Charo, being the eldest and quite a thoughtful sort of child was a bit apprehensive at first, but once Rich had given him a digital camera and the title of official photographer he was in his element, showing his sisters photos of themselves and feeling extremely important in his role in 'teacher' of how to use a camera!! This means that many of our photos of Riziki are complete with added extras such as small fingers over the lens and lots of shots of the floor, but we did manage to take a few sneaky ones of our own for you to look at.

The girls are all doing really well, being in the kindergarten classes at home at the minute and clearly get on brilliantly with their teacher, whom they called over excitedly to meet their brothers. The manager of the home knew the boys immediately as she recognised the resemblance between the family straight away, and seemed to know the girls very well indeed.

We left many of the clothes which had been donated and were left over from Mtopanga School there with the manager to distribute to the children who needed them most at the time in the home, all of the items will be shared fairly amongst the girls and boys there, adding another 80 children to our running total of children touched by your gifts while we were out there!

It was a wonderful day. An absolute joy to bring them together again after so long, and to encourage a regular link between the homes which should allow them to be in contact with each other all the time.

Thanks once again for your support and enjoy the photos!

 

We thought you might be chomping at the bit for more information about the first four sponsored boys on the programme, so we thought we would give you a bit of background to them and why they are sponsored now.

When we first met Charo, Safari, Kaingu and Emmanuel they were four brothers in a family of 11 children, all staying in a dilapidated mud hut in a rural village called Takaungu; about 40 minutes north along the coastline from Mtwapa. The family consisted of 7 girls and 4 boys, their (estimated) ages ranging between the eldest at 15 years and the youngest at 2 years.  The ages are all estimates since the children don't know their dates of birth and because they were not born in hospitals but in the village they do not have formal birth notification cards! 

The boy's father had recently passed away, and his three wives, the mothers of the children, had all abandoned them. They had one uncle who was attempting to help them with food and clothing, but who was also struggling to feed his own family. Consequently, they were living alone. The boys were working in a local quarry making bricks to earn a small amount of money for food, but the family were struggling to make ends meet. The house they were sleeping in was impossibly small, with almost no furniture and all four walls were in a state of severe disrepair; it was clear they could not remain in this situation any longer.

We began to look for alternative accomodation for all the children, hoping to find them stable places to live where they would recieve food, water and access to education. The chief of the village and the district childrens officer along with some relatives of the children we traced in Takaungu all suggested children's homes to be the best option and the search began!

After finding many homes full to the rafters we came across Riziki Children's Home, and New Light Boys Home. The guardians at these homes were happy to accept the 8 youngest children and so four of the girls are now staying in Riziki and attending school there. The eldest 3 girls are now living in the village with their uncle, but without the babies to look after, are able to go to school and feed themselves more easily.

1 year on, Charo, Safari, Kaingu and Emmanuel are now fully settled into the New Light Children's Home in Mtwapa and are firm friends with many of the other boys living there. They are also now attending Mtwapa Academy, one of the best schools in the area, and are newly sponsored as part of Milele.

We are intending to help New Light and Riziki Childrens Homes in their respective endeavours to begin a regular connection and link the boys and girls together again. We also hope to instigate visits between the boys hometown of Takaungu where the eldest sisters are staying and the two homes so the connection between them does not weaken.

Over the next few days we are hoping to post some individual profiles of the boys so you will get to know them with us!