WATOTO WEMA VISIT - 6TH APRIL

On the Sunday of 6^th April a good number of our members visited Watoto Wema children’s home in Ruai. This is an initiative that is usually coordinated by the Reach Out Program (ROP) of AYICC-K. ROP is a commitment to support the Watoto Wema Centre, an orphanage with over 56 children (35 of them are boarders) through visits, donations and mentorship. AYICC members are always dedicated to contributing time, money, foodstuff and clothes towards making life better for these children.

We converged in town then proceeded to Ruai at around Midday. It was along ride for the first timers, and fortunately we got their in time. On arrival we were shown around the home and it was amazing to see quite a number of developments that the Centre had made! There was a newly built boy’s dormitory sponsored by the Safaricom Foundation which was already complete, a girl’s dormitory and a classroom were almost complete, a new spacious kitchen had been put up, and a health centre was under construction too!

The Girl's storey dormitory next to the Boy's dormitory

Evidently a lot more is yet to come...

The boy's dormitory donated by Safaricom Foundation

The Heath Centre under construction

They also a number of projects running, for instance they had established a vegetable garden on which they were growing healthy sukuma wiki (kales) and spinach, the number of poultry had also increased tremendously, a cattle shed had also been constructed which will host two dairy cows. You wouldn’t also believe that they had purchased a TukTuk! We branded it the ‘school bus’. They were now able to easily ferry shopping and even the children from the shopping center to the home.

Also present....

The Tuk Tuk...and of course DJ React was present

After the tour the ladies prepared a delicious meal, of rice, cabbage and beef stew (we bought them 5KGs of meat)…..while the gentlemen interacted with the kids. We had lunch at around 3 PM with the kids, and thereafter had mentor-ship sessions, grouped as the girls and the boys, and had one-on-one talks that mostly encouraged them to work hard and do their best in schools. Some class 8 candidates presented some of their essays which were exceptionally well written. We also introduced to the kids what AYICC does and planted a seed of environment conservation, which is an aspect that ROP plans on implementing to grow future environmentalists.

The ladies braved the smoke in the kitchen...

..and eventually lunch was ready!

Then came time for serious business...

Later on we assembled to present the gifts that we had, and as always it rained sweets once again (the smiles on their faces…priceless). With the money generously contributed by our members, we bought them 10 Litres of cooking oil, 5 large tubes of tooth paste, several packs of tissue paper, 5 bars of soap, and with the rest of the money paid for 20KGs of maize floor that would be processed by the local miller. Donations by our members included a bundle of toys, stationary and several bags of clothes.