Reintegrate Street-Connected Children in Kitale

On 12 April, street children, NGOs, celebrities, policy makers, businesses and concerned individuals the world over mark the International Day for Street Children. This annual dedication to a particularly vulnerable group in our society was launched in 2011 by the Consortium for Street Children (CSC), the leading network dedicated to guaranteeing the rights of street children worldwide.

Child Rescue Kenya is joining a host of street children charities on the eve of the International Day for Street Children 2015 to Sleep Out on Manchester's Oxford Road (UK), in Solidarity with children all over the world who are surviving on the streets.

Please give now to show your support for the volunteers sleeping out, and the children in Kenya that CRK works with. If you want to join us on the day (April 11 2015): http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/solidarity-sleep-out-tickets-16271098293

Please support CRK's efforts by donating to one of the projects below.

https://www.globalgiving.co.uk/fundraisers/solidarity-sleep-out-2/

http://www.globalgiving.org/fundraisers/solidarity-sleep-out/

Links:

• https://www.globalgiving.co.uk/fundraisers/solidarity-sleep-out-

Child Rescue Kenya was feeling very loved over the Christmas period. We were lucky to receive wonderful gifts from supporters such as yourselves. In early December we had a great Giving Tuesday. Every donation made to CRK on GlobalGiving, while funds lasted, was matched by Microsoft YouthSpark. Thank you for making the day so successful and helping us to continue our work with the children in Kitale.

Christmas was very special for the children at our Liyavo and Birunda projects. This year supporters gave money and gifts and the children enjoyed a Christmas Eve Beef dinner, a Christmas day lunch of roast chicken, chapatis (which are an extra special treat for the children here in Kitale), juice and cookies. The children each had a present of two outfits from East Didsbury Methodist Church in the UK and a personalised t-shirt from the Flake family, so they are all looking extremely smart. They also had Christmas presents, sweet treats and stockings from them and other supporters.The children were very excited and received far more than they expected. It was definitely a Christmas to remember!

The children at Liyavo are all now back in school for the new academic year, sporting new shoes that many of them had for Christmas and new uniforms as they have all grown taller over the last few months.

We also have a new member at the project. Esther* was found sleeping on a veranda and was very sick. We think that she was so frail and weak that her family had left her somewhere she could be found because they could not afford medical care. Esther is seven years old and luckily a passer-by noticed her, picked her up and took her to the local administration office that deals with children. The local administration arranged an immediate placement to our Rescue Centre in Birunda. Esther was so sick, that the CRK social worker took her straight to hospital. Esther was hospitalized as she was suffering from Diabetes, Typhoid and Malarial Fever. Her little toes were also infested with jiggers. After three days in hospital Esther is now recuperating. Her sugar levels are now under control and she is continuing with medication.

Esther will be part of the family in Liyavo while CRK search for her family. We hope that we will be able to support Esther's immediate or extended family to look after her properly. If that is not a possibility we will search for a local foster family who can care for her. Sadly her story is not unusual and we receive a number of similar cases every year. So we are always grateful of your support.

Did you know that you can arrange your own fundraisers for Child Rescue Kenya through GlobalGiving? Su Corcoran, a supporter in the UK, has challenged herself to walk 50Km in September for CRK. Her fundraising page is here if you would like to find out more: http://www.globalgiving.co.uk/fundraisers/sus-12-month-challenge/. She is halfway to her fundraising target and looking for sponsors to help her reach her goal of £2,000. If you would like to set up your own fundraising page contact us and we will send you instructions.

Thank so much for your continued support. Without it we would not be able to complete our work here in Kitale. The pictures I am including in this report show the happy children at Liyavo and Birunda on Christmas Eve.

Best Wishes and Happy New Year,

Evidently the journey towards re integration is a difficulty one often with rough rides along the way because of the complexities around the whole process.

Children who are victims of physical abuse from parents or close relatives loose an attachment bond with them taking them home again to face the same abusers is a tough ride. And that is what CRK Child Care workers must do to ensure a child settles comfortably with the family.

In this season one of the difficulty cases that is still in process involves John* who is 10 years old. John was abused and his hands cut, the issues behind such abuses are often poverty related and parental frustrations. On the first visit our staff were met with coldness and resistance but thanks to the Family Therapy Training that they have undergone currently there is a rapport and the family is settled and handling the matter, but this takes time and often the gains made could be lost but we have always remained steadfast and committed.

We have continued to carry on the activities arround the process and this involves doing outreach on the streets meeting new children, rescuing them that are willing and prepare them for reintergration spending time with children and understanding their issues, making contacts with thier families. Its often a cumbersome process but we are up beat.

Thanks again for believing in our cause and support. 

The 2014 is our transformation year for Liyavo Children Centre . 2014 was to be Child Rescue Kenya year of implementing a family focused approach in addressing issues affecting children that resulted into children running from the safety of their homes to streets. This required that we engage in activities that will see the development of relationships among children and their existing relatives or families that was missing initially. Among the things we did to ensure that we are on the way to success was to have a training on family therapy in the month of March 2014 which all of our members of staff participated in. The Training is tailored to have the staff members re-live their past experiences and then develop from their experiences the best way to handle issues affecting families and children. So throughout this year until now we have engaged 65 families and relatives of children and in the process managed to resettle 101 children with their families. The approach also includes an empowerment component where families come up with income generating initiatives that we support to enable families take care of their children well . Children who came to streets for lack of food are now at home because families have now foods. We have so far managed to cut the street migration cycle greatly with out of 101 children taken home only 7 have come back to the streets. We continue to appeal to our friends and partners to support our cause Many Thanks

The children in Liyavo and the entire Child Rescue Kenya are very grateful for your continued support of this noble work.

The Period January to March is normally a very exciting time for children as many of them have to move to new levels in their education and so there is a lot of adjustments many have moved to new classes and sat for end term examinations the results of which are impressive.

In this period too Child Rescue Kenya has undertaken a program aimed at shifting from institutional based care for children to a family focus approach. This approach involves the formation of family units within the centre. The units comprise of a mother and father figure who are there to give a personal care to children within thier units. 

For continuity of this service we also bring in close relations to the children to enlist thier support in the development of an appropriate family, so that the environment of the family is created for children,

This is being done as a strategic shift based on research findings that do not favour institutional care.

once again we thank you for believing in our cause and your continued support