Educating street children in the Mathare slums

Dear Friends,

 Its that time again when you get an update of what we have been up to the last 2/3 months as we continue to serve our children who are the future of this beautiful world.

 We still continue to recruit the 20 children we talked about in the last update. We hope to finish this process by end of November so the children recruited join us during the Christmas holiday program to get to know each other individually.

 In the last update we reported that the building of the Children Center had stalled but as we report now, we do not know where to start due to excitement, but we finally did get the Center finished and just yesterday we moved in. A Malayan Proverb says “One can pay back the loan of gold, but one dies forever in debt to those who are kind” and indeed we the Board, Staff and more so our clients (Children and parents) are indebted to you forever, in fact the country where our kids are part of the future is indebted forever. All this is due to your continued regular support and deep faith you and our other friends have put in us for all these years. Please see photos attached. In the Center, we have a counseling room, a library, a multi-purpose hall and meeting space for our more than 120 kids and their families, a washing bay for the children to wash their clothes,a kitchen where the kids can receive a nourishing meal each day and a computer room where all our kids will train in basic computer skills. We also have two apartments which will be rented out to help us meet additional bills like electricity, water and internet.  You will remember that during the election violence some time back, there was a great deal of danger and violence in the slum.  We are delighted that the kids now have a secure place they know they can always come to, and where they can eat, talk and learn in safety.

 The last months also saw 4 children get admitted to various hospitals across the country depending on where they go to school. Two of them had Cerebral Malaria but have recovered and gone back to school.  One one got Typhoid and is still recuperating at home while one is still hospitalized after it was found that he had a hole in his heart which needs surgery. This boy might not be attending school this term but we hope he will recover soon to be able to attend school next year. Except for the normal colds and flu and malaria here and there all our kids are doing fine health wise.

 In Kenya every end of year, children in their last year of Primary education sit for the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education Exams while those in Secondary Schools sit for the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Examinations. We currently have 8 of our children sit for the different exams and wish them good luck in their endeavors.

In the next couple of weeks we will be launching a new website and will be sending short videos and other materials to our donors, as part of our annual fundraising campaign.  Please send us an email to support@mathari.org if you would like to be included in this.

Many, many thanks once again to all of you, we do indeed find it very fortunate to have you with us on this important journey.

With warm regards,

(Asanteni Sana.)

Titus Mwangi
Team Leader