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Project Managers: Chris and Margarita Hawley |
Nairobi, Kenya
Sathya Sai School & Home
Project No: F21
Project Managers: Chris and Margarita Hawley
In Uthiru, on the outskirts of Nairobi, the Sathya Sai School &
Home provides shelter, food, clothing and education to fifty resident
children ranging in age from 7 to 18-many of whom have been orphaned
by the AIDS plague. The school also offers day facilities to approximately
150 youngsters in this destitute community. Founded by a Kenyan
teacher, the academic program follows the official Kenya curriculum
and the spiritual teachings of Sai Baba.
The Sai Spirit of Love Children's Home Trust supports
the facilities through a sponsorship program. It recently acquired
additional land and is in the process of building a new school. |
Construction of new school building underway. |
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| Nairobi
has the unique distinction of having some of the largest slums in
Africa. 150 children living by this garbage dump attend our day
school. |
Real Life Story — My Mother's Illness Forced
Us to the Streets —Leah and her 2
sisters started a new life on the streets, soon used to eating rotten
food, sniffing glue, and begging... (click
here for full story)
To
donate to this Family Care Foundation Project, please note Project NAME
and then click here.
Run by mostly volunteer efforts, the Saithya Sai Spirit of Love School and
Home:
First and foremost provides shelter, simple food, and clothing to 50 resident
children, mostly AIDS orphans, ranging in age from 7 to 18 years. In addition
to the comprehensive resident program, Saithya Sai also offers day-schooling
facilities to approximately 150 youngsters in Uthiru, one of the largest
slum areas in all of Africa.
Resident children, Standards I - V
Saithya Sai has crafted a groundbreaking education program
with limited resources, a typical African community organization that
operates on a shoestring budget and so innovates extensively. While the
school program is innovative, it also conforms to the official Kenya curriculum,
thereby allowing the academic achievement of its children to be recognized
for admission into other educational institutions or for employment
Resident children, Standards VI - VIII
The program also teaches the resident children moral values,
citizenship and the volunteers living-in with the children model a family
life for them. Finally, as these children grow older the program includes
re-integrating them into society, finding employment and families for
them to assimilate into and helping them take the first step toward their
dreams.
Resident Secondary School children.
 
Appalling conditions of the poor neighborhood where 150 of our day-school
students live. |
| Nairobi has the unique distinction
of having some of the biggest slums in all of Africa (Uthiru and Mathare)
and the highest number of street kids of any African city. Some estimates
suggest about 90,000 children live on the streets of Kenya’s
capital. In the course of the AIDS epidemic, these children present
a very unique problem.
With a very large percentage of adults (often up to 60% or more
in some regions) in the reproductive age infected and dying, children
below the age of 15 represent the future and possibly the existence
of these countries and the people. Yet, a large percentage of them,
orphaned by parents who have died of AIDS and also possibly infected
through mother-to-child transmission of the virus, are living on
the streets. Their life path if unchanged is one of utter hopelessness
and with life expectancy even lower than that of their parents.
These children live and eat on the streets, become victims of sexual
and physical abuse and take to drugs and petty crime as a way to
survive. As most of the children have been orphaned at a very young
age (it is not uncommon to see a family of children living on the
streets with a 7 year old as the oldest taking care of his/her younger
siblings) have little idea of life in a family and community. Eventually
the deadly combination of poverty, abuse, and HIV takes their lives
at a very young age.
The Saithya Sai School and Home is a comprehensive program that
is building one possible alternative life-path for these children,
strengthen the society and offer a hope that this epidemic will
not completely destroy the culture of the people of Africa.
The Trust has acquired a plot of land near the existing home and
school and is in the process of building a new school building,
expected to be completed shortly. |
Children from surrounding area view plot for new school. |
Construction of new school building underway. |
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