Africa Trip Day 8: Ethos and UNICEF,

Helping the Children of Kenya
Posted on Sat. Dec 17, 2005 at 9:29 PM by Jonathan Greenblatt

Fred met us at the hotel this morning and we quickly headed to the home of Manu Chandaria, one of the leading businessmen in Kenya.  He is an indigenous Kenyan of South Asian descent who seems quite mild-mannered, a short and assuming man prone to a steady voice and hearty laugh. 

We headed back into Nairobi after our visit at Getathruru, making our way through a series of poverty-stricken neighborhoods to visit another children’s center.  We soon found that we had transitioned from a semi-rural environment to an extremely dense, urban population center.  It is hard to describe the overwhelming sense of poverty that confronts you in these areas on the outskirts of the capitol city. It is akin to sensory overload: you see an extraordinary concentration of people, you hear a cacophony of sounds, you smell burning garbage and other noxious odors.  It is a powerful experience.   

The Bahati Rehabilitation Center is located in the center of the slums.  Its purpose is similar to Getathruru, rehabilitating abandoned boys living in the street, but the similarities end there.  Funds contributed by Ethos Water have helped to support the construction of new latrine and water storage facilities on site at the school.  Some of the construction was taking place as we toured the site.

On average, the children were much older than those at Getathruru.  They didn’t wear the nice uniforms of those children, but rather, t-shirts and baggy pants like their peers in the street or young kids everywhere.  Interestingly, in a contrast to the Getathruru children, the boys of Bahati were much more forthcoming with their feelings.  They volunteered their aspirations – I want to be a surgeon, a doctor, a teacher, a footballer.  To that end, boys had adorned the walls above their bunk beds with newspaper clippings of their favorite sports heroes – mainly, it seemed, images of players from Arsenal and Manchester United.  

As we walked through the center.  The Bahati headmaster introduced us to one of the stars of the facility, a young boy named Steven Biko.  He was a curious kid, maybe 15, full of questions.  Steven Biko is a former ‘street boy’ who has just earned a scholarship to attend a prestigious boarding school outside of Nairobi. He wants to go to Harvard and become a cardiologist. When we had an opportunity to meet with all the children and they sang for us, Steven finished up the performance by giving a set of remarks. 

Afterwards, we wanted to interview Steven and perhaps one additional boy to capture their words on film.  We explained to the crowd of 80-or so students that we only had time for two interviews and proceeded to set up the camera.  Interestingly, when we turned around, we saw that 12-15 children had lined up to speak on camera.  When we re-explained that we didn’t have time for multiple interviews, the children were not daunted.  I didn’t want to disappoint, so we indulged them and allowed each person to talk on film.  It was incredible – we heard an extraordinary range of personal stories as the boys related their often-grueling personal experiences and their aspirations for a better life.  As we sat and listened to them, the therapeutic nature of the interview process became increasingly clear.  Finally, we had to end the session in order to make our next visit, but hearing these tough young men open up and share their hopes and stories, it was as insightful as any other moment on our trip.

Our next stop took us to the Imani Children’s Refuge, a shelter for some of the youngest children, many aged between two and five years old.  A high cement wall protected Imani from the garbage-strewn slums around it but, once you cleared the massive steel door, it was extraordinary.  We were greeted by a group of 20-30 young children, just slightly older than my own son, who sung for us as our van entered the premise. There were flowers around the facility and brightly painted walls with lots of toys.  Warmth and love simply radiated from all over the space.

Imani was founded almost 10 years ago by Faith, the woman who manages the center.  She is a ball of fire, a true whirlwind of motion, a powerful and inspired young woman who has thrown herself at her work and dedicated her life to the betterment of these orphaned children.  This facility was one of several homes that she had started: she had a home for infants and other for older children.

Faith proudly showed off the new water storage tanks that she had purchased with the support of UNICEF and Ethos Water.  We watched the children take dinner, sitting at long tables and munching happily on nutritious meals of vegetables, chapatti and chicken.  I was surprised by the variety of food and asked Faith, who promptly walked our group over to a space behind the main area where we found ourselves in a massive petting zoo – cows, chickens, goats, sheep, pigs, turkeys, ducks.  Faith learned long ago that she only could guarantee a healthy diet for her children so she did just that, vertically integrating into livestock and farming, using some of her older children to help tend to the animals and mind the garden.  It was an impressive operation.

After spending some time playing with her younger children and watching the older kids conduct an acrobatic performance, we headed off to visit the Imani facility for infants.  Faith beamed as she walked us through a three-story building that featured living quarters for the tweens and, higher up, a highly sanitized and well-attended nursery for newborns and the youngest infants.  Again, we were amazed by her work and delighted to see that some of our funds had supported her work through the purchase of enormous water storage tanks to supply the center with a large reservoir of water.  In other places, Faith showed us the literature and posters that had been developed to encourage handwashing and promote clean hygiene among the children and the adults.

As night unfolded on the city, we headed back to the hotel.  It had been a full day and offered many contrasts to our experiences in Addis.  However, we were pleased to see that our investments continued to do considerable good and serve children in need, regardless of their circumstance, by helping to provide them with clean water.