Newsletter March 2005

Receive greetings from Imani family!

Imani is greatly overwhelmed by your continual presence in her life of reaching the needy community. Particularly your being part of Imani in your prayers, encouragement, any contributions in kind or through your wonderful ideas made the various project activities take course in the last month.
It is thus a priviledge for the project to give a brief monthly report for the last month.

Education
16 toddlers joined baby classes in the various local private schools and have settled well. Imani really appreciates for the great concern of Allen Grove school, Halisi academy, Cathsam school, and Safina academy who are sponsoring the education of some of the toddlers in their schools.
Other children in the informal sector were recruited in the surrounding city council schools and only the new comers and the babies are home during school days.
The last year class “8” candidates joined various secondary schools depending with their capability and an individual child needs. Some joined boarding secondary schools whereas those that needs parent’s close observation
joined the nearby day schools. These were the children who still need some rehabilitation and taking them away from home for long might do worse than good.

Dis – engangement
The children who sat for their last year form 4 exam graduated on 16/ 02/05. They were rejoined with their guardians pending the results of the National exam. Among them were a few cases without families and it was impossible to re-integrate them. The plans to have them join teenager houses are still there as they are of age and no longer eligible to be in a children’s home. At the time renovation works of the house that was donated to them by Imani friend is in process.

3 children who were to join form one were referred back to their families in the rural set ups and joined the secondary schools of those areas. These were the children who were never favored by urban environment and were always out of hands in Imani because of the urban pressure. In these schools they are working directly with the families where they belong as Imani continues supporting their education.

New admissions
A total of 23 children were newly admitted in Imani. They belonged to following specified categories:
Abandoned children (14)
Street children (3)
Of imprisoned parents (6 of which 4 were temporal cases and were later rejoined).

Black outs
Of the newly admitted cases 1 abandoned baby of less than two months was severely infected and affected by HIV/AIDS and she passed away while admitted in hospital.
Another girl child of 4 years and a child of a mother who was in conflict with law had a sudden illness and passed on her way to hospital.

IMAGINE THIS

A. ALWAYS WITH A REASON
Twin babies of 10 months were found by neighbours abandoned in a plot. Their mother and them were new residents in the plot and were hardly 3 days old in that plot. Therefore even the land lord could not tell who they were.
Some of the women in the plot decided to rescue the infants thinking that their mother will soon be back. A week went by, the mother was nowhere to be seen. Another one passed- eeh !they were without words.

They reported to the area chief who authorized them to take the infants to Imani for a safer custody. Another two weeks passed by, and one Friday late in the evening the woman was seen loitering in the slums by some of the women who rescued the children.

Like thunderstorms they got hold of her and on top of their voices they brought her to Imani home accusing her for having abandoned her twin infants.

At Imani the young woman of less than 30 years was with held. On interviewing her she was confident that she had left cooked rice for the two babies in a sufuria and on the floor enough for the 1 month she was away. She also argued that the children could have fed themselves when she failed to return back. “You really wonder how they could have taken care of themselves at that age”. Her speeches were also endless , mixed up and without any clear message. Her manner of handling things and behaviour clearly indicated something was amiss.
She spent a sleepless night at Imani , bothering everyone else in the house. Early the next morning Imani took her to Mathare mental hospital where she was immediately. She is mentally unwell and still in hospital.
The children are also in Imani and at this time the mother cannot be able to give any relevant information about any of the relatives. None of the relatives is known yet the bill in hospital continues to accumulate. The children also needs special attention as they had stayed in cold before rescue. Sad enough the boy has been admitted in hospital as a result of pneumonia—ooh ! all this within no time.

Malindi.
The construction works of Malindi project are still going on and construction of a babies house is in progress. There are also a few babies who are there. One of them having been found abandoned in Malindi municipality in February by the childen department of the area.

Challenges;

Challenges have been part of progress in Imani.

To mention a few majority of the newly admitted cases especially the abandoned children came with a wide range of problems. It was hard to know where to start from for the better of every individual child. even months old babies were brought with signs of abuse , others with complicated health problems with no known histories of their status.

Think of this story.

B). PLEASE – GIVE ME HOPE.
A boy 12 years old was rescued from the streets by police officers from the locality. The boy was taken to the station as the officers tried to trace his family. A week passed and their efforts to get the child’s background were a futile goose chase. The boy was also unwell and getting worse day after another. One evening the officers with the hopeless boy who weighed 13 kgs popped into Imani home . He was coughing with the whole throat and even though Imani didn’t have a room for his age it was really a pathetic case that could not be turned without a hand.

The same night Imani took him to Kenyatta hospital where he slept overnight and was released the next day. The cough continued and the child had to be taken back to hospital. This time he was diagnosed to be having Tuberculosis in addition to him being HIV /AIDS positive . Since then he started medications for the tuberculosis but he is yet to start the anti retro viral drugs because of the general body weakness.

Later a home visit was carried out at the grandmother’s place and which found out that the child’s mother passed away. That the siblings moved to stay with the grandmother- maternal side whereas the boy was left with the father who later moved with him to Dandora estate. According to the grandmother she didn’t know when the child moved to Dandora as she claimed that she thought he was still in the rural area where the father was brought up. No one knows the father’s whereabouts- neither no one knows when did the child get into the streets. The source of his health status remains a nightmare also. Now Imani biggest challenge is –where to place this child who needs special attention like any other child and bearing in mind that he is sexually active and can thus spread the same to other children who are going through rehabilitation in the center.
Imani is trying to seek places specialized with his situation better for placement and which is a big challenge. Everywhere Imani goes the answer is that the capacity is full. Now what next?
Could you be knowing somewhere we can place him – in the best interest of the child ? please your idea is very welcome.

The other challenge that the project is facing is- some schools misunderstanding the former street children. These are the children whose backgrounds were completely tempered with in their early years and having gone through a lot of torture and other hardships. When such a child is ready to join school usually there is delay for them to catch up well like any other from an ideal family set up. Some teachers expect so much from them that they are unable to attain. At times the children demand more attention that is not possible to get especially in the city council schools where there are many children to be handled. The end result is thus not always favourable.

Future plans
-To have the teenager houses operating.
-To start the construction works of Imani –A kitchen.

KIND REGARDS AND HAVE A BLESSED EASTER HOLIDAY.

FAITH WANJIRU
IMANI CHILDREN’S HOME.