Saturday

After breakfast, we set off for New Life Home, just round the corner, where we met some of the children including the babies, toddlers and older special needs. The Home exists to rescue abandoned children and then to find them a new home with adoptive parents. It was moving to learn that many of them had been rescued from the streets, some in plastic bags, some still with the placenta attached.

We moved on to Pete and Paula Phillip’s home where we were welcomed before setting off into the slum to visit the site of the To Kenya With Love (TKWL) school facility. The compound is in the middle of the slum. It was exciting to see the climbing frame and slide Paint Pots had paid for. I had a photo taken with some of the HIV positive children whose parents were meeting in the school. We viewed the classrooms, the cooking and eating areas, the rooms which will eventually become the nursery and the sports field which was being grazed by goats.

The buildings are surrounded by mud and tin huts.  The mud tracks that separate them are strewn with litter.

The school charges between £2-8 a month per child for them to attend 8 – 3 every day. This is cheaper than the £10+ a month charged by the “free” government schools, which many families are unable to afford. For this amount they are provided with all resources, uniform and a hot meal each day. The school is starting to grow its own food, including pods from the maringa tree which are full of protein and vitamins. These are added to the daily rice and beans to supplement the nutrition given to the children. For many, their school meals are the only food available to them all day.

We returned to Pete and Paula’s for a barbecue. Several friends joined us including Chris Wheat the TKWL project worker. It was really good to see him again. We spent some time chatting.

Pete told us it had been a difficult last term. The school had lost 3 parents to Aids and their brightest pupil to malaria. Most of the school’s children are orphans. This area has the highest incidence of HIV in Kenya – over 70%.