Sponsoring Elaine Waterfield as she rises to the Challenge of Kilimanjaro next week

Elaine Waterfield on Facebook : Next week we head for Nairobi to meet the prime minister and then go to Kilimanjaro to do a sponsored walk to fund raise for Girl child education and to buy land for an orphanage and a rehab any help with funding and any one willing to sponsor us will be much appreciated and prayers for our protection and that we will reach the top love in Christ Laineeloo

FRIENDS OF REDIM CBO, SUNA KENYA "With A Heart For The People"

PO BOX 1081 Suna Migon

Code 40400 Kenya

Tele: George +254713758070

Tele: Elaine +254706298460

Email: redimkenya@yahoo.com FRIENDS OF REDIM CBO, SUNA KENYA

"School fees : This year alone a ten year old, and two thirteen years old children have committed suicide."

"With A Heart For The People"
Greetings in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and greetings from REDIM CBO and the Makongeni church Suna.
I first arrived in Kenya in September 2011 and a month later I joined George and Sarah Okoth in their compound in Chungni Suna. I had met George whilst climbing Asego Mountain Homa Bay where he told me about his vision of building an orphanage and a new clinic to cater for the needs of the community. George also shared his testimony of how as a boy he struggled with education such as school fees, uniform,child labor, ignorance and illiteracy of his parents and his community, extreme poverty, peer influence and lack of parental role model. In fact he had a very painful childhood but with his tenacity, faith and love for education he became a Teacher and Social worker.
During our conversation he also spoke of his vision for the Promotion of Girl Child Education, which was the main target in all of the projects he wanted to get involved with. He said that at
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that time Girl Child Education had not been given a priority in the community. Although both boys and girls prostituted themselves for School fees, girls were even more vulnerable because many became pregnant and had risk of HIV/AIDS infection, which then led to early marriages. This is why at secondary school level there are far more boys than girls and also at Further Education level
This greatly touched me as in the Uk Education in primary and secondary level is free and Sanitary towels and uniforms are easily available. I therefore gave George a big box of pads to take to Kihoru Primary school and the rest is history.

 

Although we couldn't deal with every problem that the community faced we started by travelling to several local schools to empower girls by giving them a voice and explaining their struggles as generally to talk on a sensitive subject is a taboo.

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Our Motto is "Girls Rule Ok, Girls are precious and God loves girls" We also supplied a number of Pads for school girls although the demand is too much and to costly to sustain.

We have had a number of meetings with school girls and the community including parents where it gave everybody the chance to air their struggles and most of all give the Girls a voice. Some of the challenges that have come out from these talks are

1.        Lack of school fees which badly effect bright children

2.        Lack of uniforms

3.        Lack of sanitary towels

4.        Early pregnancies and marriages

5.        HIV/AIDS

Child tabour

7.     Lack of Parental guidance and role models

8.        Peer Influence

9.        Lack of electricity to study

I_.Q. Orphan hood

11.    Boys and men wanting sex with the girls in bushes on the way home from school as all the schools are day schools.

12.    Suicide because of lack of school fees,. This year alone a ten year old, and two thirteen years old children have committed suicide.

13.    When going to school early in the morning children can meet night runners ( witch doctors) running naked and they have killed one child and give them medicine that stops them speaking_

Because these meetings were televised on NTV and K24, an NGO KOGALO based in Niarobio helped us provide 998 girls with pads from several schools including Malera Primary and Secondary, St Peters Abwao Primary and Secondary, Masara Primary and Secondary, St Erine Raha Primary and Secondary, Magongo Primary and Secondary, Machihcha primary and secondary, Giribe Primary and Secondary, Kihoru Primary school, Nyasoko Primary, Kokendi Primary, Obembo Primary   and Marabiko Primary Schools .                 With                 thenks to Trevor Davies , Sue Claydon and Frank Parker UK for funding all this to happen.

Because we have been empowering Girls with Education and giving them a voice, a group of parents from Chungni started a group to provide their children with school fees and this helped them to have a Fund raising recently and raised 160,OOOKSH ( Kenya Shillings). Later this year on 27th August we are holding a special fund raising  for school fees for 15 girls from that group. The average school fee for Secondary school is 20.000 KSH for the day scholars and 35,000 KHS for the boarders. (120 KHS is equivalent to one pound GBP.

Also a young woman called Noline Akoth Oyugi is now _attending Egerton University studying Social Work and Education thanks to the work we have ^been doing with Girl child Education.

During my first six months in Suna George and I visⁱted many commun_ity meetings encouraging parents, feeding the Elderly and speaking with Widows, as many were having daughters or were caretakers of orphans. We also helped with school fees thanks to Chris Welch from Hayling Island and his wife trainee nurse Christine sent us a blood pressure kit and thermometer

In February 2012 I returned to the Uk, I had expected George to come back with me for six weeks to source for funds, share his vision and give his testimony about the struggle s of both boys and girls in Education, but he was sadly unable to get a visa.

During this time thanks to Street Pastor Frank Parker I gave a talk to a group of Elderly people in KCC Church, Hedge End Southampton, about what I had been doing in Suna and they gave me eighty pounds, this was spent on sending four orphans back to Suna from Nairobi as their father Georges Cousin and our friend David Oching had passed away from HIV/AIDS.I also met with Dr Martin Hughes and his wife Ruth from KCC who provided George and Sarah medical provision and clothes for Davids Orphans.

Kingsway church Braunstone Leicester gave me one hundred pounds after showing slides of Suna and giving a brief talk, this was spent on Moon cups sanitary wear for girls and for bricks for the Makongem Church Suna. However Mick an Elder from Kingsway provided Leicester City Football Kit and two footballs and pump. One Football was donated to Mabubi Church as the children everywhere would normally play with a football made from a used condom, string and polythene bags. After discussion with George we are now having an all girls football tournament ⁱⁿ June from 5th to 15th the winners will get the kit and a trophy whilst the runners up will get the ball and every girl with get moon cups provided by Joan Reilly a friend from FB in USA.

Other donations were given by Mark, as well as John and Karen Berry from my local church in the UK New Parks cell, from Trinity Life church AOG Leicester. Anne and Pamela Anderson made sanitary towels and give provision for school fees. We had a twenty pound donation from John

My good friend Trevor Davies a Street Pastor, Gideon etc gave a donation which enabled us to build a REDIM labor ward and REDIM office along side the REDIM clinic George had built with bricks. Doug Skehan my late husband's Cardiologist Consultant from Leicester provided us with the finance to roof and doors for these three buildings. Sue Clay done also kindly gave us some money that has been spent on this project.

Whilst in the UK I was interviewed by journalist Sally Church wood from Southampton Daily Echo and she wrote an article about how I had adjusted to the local culture and lifestyle in a remote area of Kenya and the work we are doing with Girl child education, this captured the heats of the local people and we had donations from a number of people and the total came to approx one thousand three hundred and fifty pounds.

This will enable us to get

1.   Means of transport a Pikki Pikki (motor bike) costing aprox 850 gbp

2, Organize the football tournament 200gbp

3. Launching of the REDIM CBO / REDIM clinic 250gbh

We also need funding for:

1.Plastering the Labour ward 100 gbp

2.       Wiring 300gbp

3.       Equipping the clinic 300 gbp

4.       Equipping REDIM office 200gbp

^5.          Equipping Labour Ward 500gbp

6.       Four wheel Drive that will also act as an ambulance 9,000 gbp

7.                Sponsored Walk for Promotion of Girl Child Education to Mount Kilimanjaro 400 gbp

Child sponsorship for school fees for orphans, vulnerable and Noline Oyugi in University -700 gbp a year. (limitless)

8.          Sanitary towels (limitless)

9.          Makongeni Church Construction and Equipments half a million gbp

10. Orphanage half a million pounds

11. Agriculture