Living Water Update

Our first visit is to Living Water Children Centre, now home to 38 children who have been either abused or neglected, are from destitute families or orphaned because of HIV/AIDS. We meet, Joseph, a young Massai boy, rejected by his family because of his disability. He has no arms below the elbows and one leg much shorter than the other. We do not want to think what would have happened to him if he didn't have a home here.

New Buildings

Joseph and classmates at Living Water

The centre is growing fast, and Anza (the owner) takes us to see the new land and building that your donations have helped him to buy. We are very impressed by the piece of land and the progress in the building work. 2 buildings are part way up, these will be classrooms and hostel for years 3 and 4, giving more room for the younger children at the current site. Anza hopes, that with our help, he can have these building ready for Easter. We are proposing to spend £4,000 to pay for the roof for these buildings.

New Classrooms at Living Water

We also see Gerald teaching here at Living Water whilst on break from his teaching degree in Kampala, Uganda. He is now half way through his 3 year programme, which is being paid for by one of our supporters. He is finding the 2nd year more challenging but he is confident that his dedication will see him through. He will be a great asset to the future of Living Water once he is qualified.

Gerald at Living Water

T.E.K.U.A. Visit

We next visit TEKUA, the centre for disadvantaged teenagers, and are delighted to see so much progress here. They are installed in a new building that Ally and Chris (the 2 founders) have managed to purchase through hard work and determination and making many personal sacrifices. Their commitment to these teenagers is clear to see. There are 120 teenagers here, learning English, Computers and Art. We also meet 4 students who we have sponsored with your donations to attend Mt Meru Tour Guide School. Their development and confidence is great to see and they are so grateful that they have been given this chance to improve their lives. We have asked Chris and Ally for their priorities and will decide what we are spending here next week.

Seela Village

After an hours exhausting off road drive, we visit Seela village to understand the progress on our sponsored project here on HIV/AIDS awareness and education. This is a remote area, where there is still a very high stigma and ignorance of the aids virus. We saw people from WAMATA act out a play to get the messages across. Some positive breakthroughs, but the challenges are best represented by the following responses from some of the villagers:

"Why not just leave these people with the virus to die and so stop it spreading?"

"Condoms give us cancer"

The HIV/AIDS remains a monumental problem and our challenge is to decide where we can maximise the benefit of our small funds.

Seela Village Aids Project

Home Visits

We also made 3 home visits with WAMATA to take small donations of food, cooking oil and soap to families affected by HIV/AIDS. We visited one home where a small orphaned girl, Irene, aged 6, had been left alone whilst her grandmother was out looking for casual work so she could buy food for them both. You donations continue to help us help families like this.

Irene aged 6 - On home visit

On a lighter note, we noticed a huge increase in street cleaning activities, only to discover that it is in preparation for George Bush�s visit here in the next couple of days. No doubt security etc. will restrict our movements during this visit. We guess he won't be visiting some of the places we've been!

Next week we will give you progress at Ndoombo Secondary School and let you know where your donations will be spent.