A series of events over a number of years led to myself and GEF Operations Co-ordinator, David Sagida spending Monday night on a mud floor in a house with no electricity or furniture. Here’s how it all came about.
We first met 19 year old Zeddy Chirchir from Kibendo in April 2015. Two years earlier, she had fallen pregnant during Form 2 (her second year of secondary school) and dropped out of Kibendo Secondary School. A friend of the family, Rose, had encouraged her to return to school and complete her education. It took some time and effort but eventually Zeddy returned to Form 2 in 2014 with Rose scraping together enough of her own money to pay her fees. Early in 2015, Rose was really struggling to afford the tuition, food, boarding and uniform fees and approached me to see if the foundation could help in any way. Inspired by both Zeddy and Rose’s efforts, David and I visited the family to find out more about their situation.
We were both struck by how determined her mother, Margaret was to ensure Zeddy got her education. Not only was she looking after Zeddy’s baby boy, Mallon, but she had also collected a large amount of heavy stone as a form of payment to the school for fees (this is often accepted in Kenya as the schools can use them for building or improving classrooms). Unfortunately, despite her efforts, she couldn’t afford the transport to get them to the school. Following the visit we shared Zeddy’s story on the Gathimba Edwards Foundation Facebook page, asking if anyone could be in a position to sponsor Zeddy each month for £35. Almost immediately, Shona Duthie kindly agreed to support her and so the next day we were able to clear the £225 fees due for Form 3, which Zeddy is now about to complete. Zeddy loves volleyball, reading books and is also the school netball captain but she dislikes running due to the fact she feels she is not good at it. Thanks to Shona, she now looks forward to her final year of secondary school and her dreams of becoming a lawyer.
This year, we started to make formal follow up visits to each of the 230 children we are supporting across Kenya to monitor their academic progress and also identify any needs which they may have at home such as beds, bedding, food and clothing and to check on their health. During our follow up visit to Zeddy we realised that her home situation was far more desperate than we could have imagined. Her mum has 7 other children and they all sleep in a single room mud house with no furniture and only a couple of blankets. They use old empty maize sacks instead of a mattress and the light from the charcoal fire to do their homework. The father of all 8 children ran away earlier this year, fearing the responsibility of looking after so many children. This also highlighted for us just how important sex education is for families here and it is something which we will cover in our seminar on 24th November in Iten and also push to have included more in the school curriculum in Kenya.
During the past 18 months since we started the Gathimba Edwards Foundation this was definitely one of the most shocking living conditions we had seen. I knew immediately that we had to do something to change this.
I came up with the the idea of staying there for a night to raise awareness for their struggles and hopefully transform their lives. Without taking much time to consider it, I decided to run the idea by my good friends and GEF volunteers Dan Mulhare, Sarah Campbell and Nicola Henderson. With their typical enthusiasm they all said “GO FOR IT”, and so go for it I did. David being David, he wouldn’t let me go alone and insisted that he accompanied me for the adventure. David is one of the most loyal, honest and hard-working people I have come across since my first visit to Kenya in 2011 and it is a huge pleasure to now have him as a full-time member of our team. He faces his own struggles each day with his 9 year old son Daniel paralysed from the neck down due to contracting meningitis at 2 months old, but despite this he never stops smiling and helps others whenever possible – even giving up 3 days of his work as a motorbike taxi last month, before he was employed by us full-time, to help with our building work 8 hours away from Iten in Karatina.
We contacted Margaret and explained why we wanted to come and stay for a night and she was absolutely delighted to welcome us. Prior to our departure, we set up a Total Giving fundraising page – http://www.totalgiving.co.uk/mypage/kibendokids – with the hope that we could raise enough money to buy and deliver several items to them the next day.
We arrived in the dark at around 7pm after a 40 minute motorbike journey in the rain along slippery, bumpy, mud roads. It wasn’t the most comfortable of journeys due to us also carrying two bags full of donated goods. We were able to pack the bags full of lovely clothes and games which our 51 building volunteers had brought with them last month. On arrival we were given a warm welcome by Margaret and all of the children who had come out of the house and walked down the wet, muddy hill with no shoes to greet us and help with our bags.
Walking up the steep hill to their house, I followed some of the children who were all bare foot. As they sped along the narrow path in the pitch darkness, I slipped and tripped in their wake, unable to see a thing. The house was also in darkness, the only light coming from the kitchen charcoal fire. As we entered the house, David and I immediately struggled to keep our eyes open due to the burning smoke from the cooking fire. The room was split into four sections – kitchen and 3 sleeping areas. The children sleep on the old maize sacks and use their hands as pillows, huddling next to the cooking section to gain warmth.
Part two can be found here