Welcome to blog number 6…..the final blog from our last trip to Africa! Apologies it’s taken a while to get this one up, but we’ve been very busy since we arrived back in the U.K a couple of weeks ago.
GILGIL
Saidia Children’s Home, Gilgil
Two days after the fabulous festival week in Lusaka, we left Zambia and headed for Kenya! After a few hours sleep in Addis Ababa, we arrived in Nairobi on 5th May. We headed straight to Gilgil, a town approx 100 miles North West of Nairobi in the Rift Valley, with around 20,000 people. After buying a few materials in the local shops that evening, the next day we headed to Saidia Children’s Home. Saidia was set up in 2004 and is home to approx 54 children ranging from 6 months to 18 years. The older children attend local schools during the daytime, and the younger children attend nursery in the mornings at Saidia.
Saidia also runs an outreach program in Bondeni, which started off as a feeding program to give the children in this area of Gilgil at least one meal a day. The program has now grown and has its own building, two nursery teachers and caters for approx 70 nursery children. They also run a Granny Club supporting grannies that are looking after their orphaned grandchildren.
For more information about Saidia please visit www.saidia-gilgil.org.uk
After collecting a few final materials and a trip on a motorbike taxi in the morning, we spent the day at Saidia. We visited the feeding centre in Bondai, where we were met by a nursery full of very excited and welcoming children, and after lunch we ran a banner making workshop with the children at Saidia. After drawing around their bodies, the children used kanga (colourful fabric worn by many women in Kenya) and paint to decorate the banner. One of the banners remained at the centre to hang in the dining room, and the other we’ve brought home with us to exhibit and show to children in the U.K.
The Sanata Charitable Trust (Sanchat), Gilgil
The following day we visited Sanchat Restart Centre also in Gilgil, which is home to approx 40 children ages 2 – 20 years, mainly boys at present. The centre offers accommodation and rehabilitation through counselling and access to education/training.
Sanchat also have two secondary schools (a boys and a girls) in Gilgil, with approx 250 children in each school, ages 6 – 19 years. The trust has also recently set up a new project enabling local women to earn a living through printing and making bags for sale. These are now being exported worldwide, and there are lots of plans in progress working with the community to enable people to become more self-sufficient and creative!
For more information about Sanchat (The Sanata Charitable Trust) please visit www.sanchat.org
We spent the afternoon at the Restart Centre, and again made 2 colourful banners with the children, one to stay in the centre and one we brought back with us.
The aim of these visits was to make some links with new organisations who are interested in developing the creative side of their work with the children they support. It was lovely to spend some time at the centres and meet the children and staff, who all seemed to enjoy the activities. This was just an introductory visit to see if there is scope for developing the work in the future. Both centres were keen for us to return next time we are in Africa, and we would love the chance to spend more time working with them in the future!
We would like to say a huge thank you to Mary, Terry, Hettie, Angus, Jane and all the children and staff we worked with for making us feel so welcome in Gilgil! We hope to be back there soon!
MOMBASSA
Glad's House, Magongo, Mombassa
After a few days in Nairobi we headed to Mombassa on the coast. Although we managed to go to Kenya during its rainy season, we did squeeze in a few days (some rain, some shine) at the beach just south of Mombassa, where we were woken every morning by naughty monkeys trying to get into our room!
On our way back to Nairobi we stopped off in Magongo, just outside of Mombassa to visit a project called Glad’s House. A fairly young organisation, Glad's House is in the process of building a centre to accommodate children that live on the streets in Mombassa. At present they run drop-in sessions during the daytime for the children (mainly boys) to come for food, activities (especially sports), support, rehabilitation and access to training.
For more information about Glad’s House please visit www.gladshouse.com
We visited during a drop-in session, to see if and how we could develop working with Glad’s House in the future, and also took along some resources to leave there. All the children drew a picture about Kenya, and we made a gallery in the tin shed currently used for the drop-in. The children were really engaged and relished the opportunity to get creative! We also did some face painting, which always goes down well! Glad’s House plan to start building their centre over the next few months, and this would be a great opportunity to be involved with developing the creative aspect of their work with the children in the new centre. We would love to be able to spend more time working with them next time we’re in Africa!
We would like to say a huge thanks to Vicky, Liz and Bokey for setting up this link, and to all the children and staff we worked with at the drop-in! We hope to be back there soon!
To find out about what we got up to in Nairobi, please read the next blog......
Thanks
Sian & Mia.xx
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