Familia Moja Newsletter - June & July 2011
by Wambui Muiru, Founder/Director
Day of the African Child
On the 16th June we celebrated “Day of the African Child” at Gatundu Children’s Home. We were five children’s homes from Gatundu North District. The children put on various performances (drama, poems, choral verses, etc) and the Familia Moja children won the prize for drama, with Alex winning the best dramatist.
Some of our kids performing in drama.
Food Sources
We harvested our first zucchini (courgette) crop from the garden.
Our rabbits have started breeding. We will continue until we have filled all the cages and then we can start selling them.
We also received two hens and a rooster from a well-wisher, which we will also start breeding to supplement our food sources.
We are on a list of charities at the airport to receive vegetables when there is an excess for export. Our contacts in Nairobi bring us the vegetables whenever there are some available. Here is a truckload of broccoli, which was previously unknown to the kids! But they’re acquiring a taste for it!
Government Assistance
We acquired new metal trunks for keeping clothes with the funds received from the Government last month.
Outing to Ndakaini Dam
The best-behaved and best-performing children were rewarded with an outing and lunch at Ndakaini Dam, which is one of the main water supplies for Nairobi. The outing was sponsored by Grace from the USA and Benard of Imperial Bank, Nairobi. We made sure that the outing had a family feel by inviting two other families so the Familia Moja kids had a chance to socialize with other children their age. The children who attended were Merci Njeri, Victor Kiarie, Alex, Imma, Wambua, Ken & John.
Fundraisers
A fundraising event in Geneva, Switzerland was held at Gab’s Music Lounge, where “master of swing” Doctor Gabs put on a breathtaking show, supported by impressive local talent ‘Vincent Sala’ and ‘Spiral’. But the audience had the chance to exhibit their talent also! Amateur singers, salsa dancers and a belly dancer “auctioned off” their performances and the proceeds went to supporting the monthly budget. There was much laughter and dancing and an unforgettable atmosphere. Special thanks to Doctor Gabs for hosting this event and Patrick from www.rockgeneva.com for supporting the organization of the event.
Gabs
Vincent
Spiral
Development Partner Visit
One of our development partners, Sandra Steiger visited us from Geneva, Switzerland. She supported us in updating and streamlining our administrative processes, including adjusting the monthly and education budgets, which have gone up due to rising fuel and food prices. To give you an indication of the scale of the increase: the cost of maize flour last year was Ksh62/2kgs and it is now Ksh128/2kgs. As this is the staple and sometimes only food source for many Kenyans, you can imagine the implications this has.
We also met with the Headmasters/mistresses of each school and many of the children’s teachers to get more detailed feedback about their progress. These meetings were extremely positive: most of them are adding marks and participating actively at school. We’ve also been able to identify certain individual needs that we will follow up with tutors. We are very happy with the quality of education the children are receiving and we are certain that we are giving them the best possible opportunity to continue their education post-primary school.
Bore Hole
We met with representatives of Imperial Bank regarding construction of the bore hole and discussed completion of the project by end November in preparation for the Group Volunteer Project January 2012.
Website
Our website was randomly hacked, which is why the site has not been accessible for a little while. This has merely given us more incentive to give it a new look, following in the footsteps of our new logo. However, sorry for the inconvenience in the meanwhile!
Star of the Month
Boniface Muse is June’s star of the month for good behaviour, taking care of the other children and being exceptional neat and tidy.
Margie is July’s star of the month for good behaviour, taking care of the other children and being exceptional neat and tidy.
New Logo
A big thank you to Aaron Maxwell for designing the new Familia Moja Children's Home logo.
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