At the various children’s home centers, it’s a completely
different story. This day normally pass without them knowing its Mother’s Day.
And for those who know, it has always been a little more difficult, it is not a
day of celebration. It is another day of bad memories, a day of sadness! For most
of them, their mothers had passed away, abandoned them, is in prison or
has never been a part of their life at all.
Most
of us have great memories of our parents and more specifically, of our mother.
They keep the significance of family and children at the forefront of
importance. To instill hope and to make a direct and profound impact, Computer
society of Kimathi teamed up with Intel at dekut, did a small planning & talked
to the university students to make financial contributions and material
donations. They did. We took the contributions and donations to Huruma
Children’s home center.
Here
is how we spent our entire day immersed in the local community on 10th May
2015 (Mother’s Day).
We took off at around 10.30
am to Huruma children’s home center which is about 30 minutes’ drive from the
university. Founded in 1961, Caltex/Huruma children’s home Centre has always been
a home to several children aged 5-18 years. Some of the children are orphans, some come from
broken homes and others come from parents who are just too poor to provide
education or enough food to sustain life. Each year, it protects, educates and
counsels children, youth and families to overcome the overwhelming obstacles of
poverty, abuse and neglect.
We had received
contributions ranging from shoes, clothes and to even bags. We used the
financial contribution to purchase rice, Dough, Snacks, Sanitary towels, Party
cups, plates, Floor (baking), Unga, Toilet papers, soaps etc. We carried all these to the Children’s home.
We arrived at around 11am
and joined the Huruma Children’s home community in their prayer service. All
the goods were kept on a separate room at this time.
Sharon Kaptich introduced
us and immediately after, we got a chance to lead a praise and worship session
which we did perfectly well. This was soon followed by a nice song presentation
by the primary school students.
Eliza
and her team then sang the Matt Redmond 10000
reasons (Bless the Lord) which was extremely captivating.
More and more
presentations were made after which Emmanuel Wachira, a Presbyterian pastor
gave a sermon, focusing on Life in Christ.
He
finished his sermon by a song titled ‘I
belong to Jesus’ from Golden Bells Hymn book.
Lunch Hour
During this time we got a chance to share lunch and familiarize
ourselves with community members. Each member of our team was assigned to
different group.
Afternoon session, 2:00-3.00 pm| One day I too get to
fly!
During
this time, we had a one on one talk with the community members where we listen
to their problems, troubles, pains, fears and dreams.
Meet
Francis, a standard seven student who aspire to be an electrical and
electronics engineer. He is with Michael Githinji, member of Intel at dekut
Makers community pursuing Electrical and Telecommunication Engineering.
A
member of CSK having a good time in a different group
From outside these
children look to lack confidence and self-esteem. It’s only by interacting with them that you realize
how strong and capable they are. They have got dreams, big ones for that matter
and are working hard towards them despite all the challenges.
Ngesa Marvin having
lunch with some of the children, listening to find more about them,
knowing the direction to their school, their current education stage….
The troubles will someday
pass, all will be well soon.
We encouraged
them to continue working hard and to have faith in whatever they do. With that,
all is possible.
Dancing session.
We then involved them in a dancing activity where we were to take a
group of children and teach them how to dance or rather dance together with
them. Most seemed to have enjoyed this especially the boy in the middle with
black jumper and black jeans.
He is a good dancer as well.
Inspiration session, 3:30-4.30 pm| Career talk.
In our team, we had
different group of students. Some from school of business, school of
engineering and others from school of computer science and IT. We gave them a
brief journey of how we reached to university level. We emphasized to them that the
challenges we face may be different but values and virtues with which we
tackle them remains the same. It all boils down to hard work, persistent,
self-belief and trust in God.
We also encouraged them
to take their talents seriously and to take part in all positive activities
such as games and dances
In between the
inspirational talks, we gave them the snacks we had carried.
Bob, Computer Society of Kimathi official distributing snacks
Nimrod
Komen giving a talk about his educational journey.
Later we officially handed all the donations to the Huruma Children’s home management team.
It was a lovely experience spending an afternoon with them. They
appreciated the donation and were extremely thankful. We
express our sincere gratitude to the Dedan Kimathi university students who made
financial and material donations.
