Empowering 37 Orphans Through Education in Kenya

My name is Joshua. I was born in 1992 in a village called Miu in Kangundo, Machakos county. I am the second born of three siblings.

My parents then lived in Dandora, a slum located in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital. Due to the high levels of insecurity in the slum, we were attacked by robbers when I was only 7 months old. Unfortunately, my father who was the sole bread winner of the family sustained severe injuries leading to his demise.

My mother was left with a burden of taking care of 2 children on her own without any source of income. She would do casual labor and all kinds of odd jobs in order to put food on the table. Life in the slum was very hard. At that time, my mother was not in contact with our paternal relatives so she had to struggle on her own. To date, I do not have any memories of my father apart from the pictures that my mum showed me.

When I was 4 years old, my mother remarried and we had to move to Kitui. Life got better since my step-father supported us. We did not have a lot, but at least we were comfortable. In 2004, my mum found out that she was HIV positive. By that time, we already had a baby brother. The news of being HIV positive broke my mother’s heart and she felt betrayed. She opted to leave the marriage and take care of us by herself.

We then had to move to Kangundo, my mother’s rural home. Life was very difficult. My mother was depressed and did not adhere to her medication. She was constantly ill. She did not have access to proper health care and nutritional support. She developed health complications and later passed on.

My mother’s death felt like the end of the world to my siblings and me. Our maternal relatives did not want anything to do with us. We were young, helpless, stigmatized and left under the care of our aged grandmother who was then a peasant farmer. She could barely put food on the table let alone send us through school. We had to work in people’s farms and in return they gave us food. Clothing and education were not basic needs to us anymore. We would spend our days dressed in tatters and toiling in people’s farms while our age mates attended school. We really wished that we could at least have access to education, but we did not have any hopes of setting our foot in school anymore.

In 2009, a good Samaritan referred us to Nyumbani Village after she saw our suffering. I was 10 years old then, and luckily enough we were all admitted. That was the dawn of a new chapter in our lifetime. We were all given new clothes, food was no longer a luxury to us. In addition, we were enrolled in Hot Courses Primary School. All these were things I never thought I would have access to in my lifetime. I promised myself that I would work hard since this was once a dream to me. I managed to score 339 marks in my KCPE and was admitted to Lawson High School. In 2017, I sat my KCSE examinations and scored an aggregate mean grade of B-.

I am currently in my first year taking a Bachelor’s Degree in Information Technology at South Eastern Kenya University. To date, I describe my life as a miracle, I never thought I would come this far. I am very much grateful to GlobalGiving donors for trusting in me and empowering my life by giving me access to education. My first born sister who is also taking a degree course in Nutrition and Diatetics and myself reminisce on the days that we were so helpless and could not even dream of having an education, and really thank God for the opportunity that came our way. We are forever indebted to GlobalGiving and Nyumbani Village for the support. For now, I can only work hard so I can have a brighter future. I also aspire to support a needy child in future just like someone supported my life.