Louise's experiences in Wagai
Click here to download newsletter produced by Louise Collier - one of Moving Mountain's most dedicated fundraisers! It is full of pics (about 5MB in size) so below is the text-only version as well ...
Louise Collier's Wagai News - September 2005
I have produced this short newsletter to illustrate the work that I have been involved with in Kenya during the summers of 2004 and 2005.
I wish to thank you all for all your kind support and for helping me make all this work possible. You have all helped either though financial support, prizes for fund-raising activities, donations of children’s clothes not to mention the moral support many of you have provided.
Hopefully, this newsletter will show you where your money etc has gone, and shows how little can go a long way…
In the beginning…
My dream all began Christmas 2003 when I was planning a trip to Africa. I went to see Gavin Bate (founder and director of the charity The Moving Mountains Trust) giving a presentation about Mount Kilimanjaro, which I was planning to climb. We got talking, things went from there so that in June 2005 I found myself in the village of Wagai, located in rural west Kenya, approximately 1 hour north-west of the city of Kisumu in the vicinity of Lake Victoria where I was to work for 6 weeks…
Wagai - 2004
My primary task was to teach geography and science in Wagai Primary School. This I did three days a week. In addition, I became involved with a voluntary organization operating in the local area called the Amani Child Development Programme. The Reverend Kenneth Wachianga, a local Anglican Priest, administers the Amani Programme. This organization prior to 2004, when I became involved, supported approximately 80 orphans in the area through provision of clothes, medicine and food. The organization is operated on a voluntary basis.
The area, although agriculturally rich, has a high population density, low standards of health and hygiene and high mortality due to AIDS and a range of hygiene related illnesses. There are a large number of orphans in the area, some very young, and many of these children have nobody to care for them, and have a bleak future ahead of them.
Most of these orphans, many very young, were living with ‘guardians’, either grand parents or older siblings who realistically cannot care for them properly.
My involvement with Amani consisted of visiting community groups, primary schools and clinics to give hygiene sanitation awareness talks and visiting these orphans in their homes and meeting their guardians.
Faced with some very shocking situations, it became clear that an orphanage was urgently needed for many of these children. I invited the Moving Mountains Trust to meet the Amani children, and from there plans arose to build an orphanage for particularly ‘needy’ cases in the area.
Orphanage Construction - 2005
In July 2005 I returned to Wagai with the Moving Mountains Trust where the charity was busy constructing an orphanage for 24 children at a site called Ollamba. This orphanage was being constructed as part of a Gap-Year Camp, where 52 students from Ireland and the UK work closely with local ‘street kids’ on projects, including but not limited to construction of the orphanage. I assisted with the construction (well the painting at least...) of this orphanage.
I also returned to the Amani children laden with lots of clothes kindly donated from my sponsors in Ireland. We had a big party with the kids, and it was like Christmas day for them. With money that was donated, we purchased sacks of rice, maize meal (which is used to make a dish called ‘Ugali’, the staple diet in the region), kidney beans, cooking fat, sugar and tea – enough to feed approximately 15 children for nearly 2 months on only €200!!!
The rest of the money donated in 2005, was given to the Moving Mountains Trust to help start up the new orphanage at Ollamba.
The story of David & Jonah
One of the saddest cases I came across in 2004 was that of David and his siblings. While on one of my rounds in 2004 we came across, 6 children whose mother was dead, and father an alcoholic who had more or less abandoned his children. David was almost dead when we found him. We immediately took David (aged 5), Jonah (Davids twin), Samuel (aged 3) and Phina (aged 7) away from the father, as they were very ill. Up to 25 worms were extracted from their stomachs and all were seriously malnourished.
In David’s case, he was so badly malnourished that he had permanently lost his eyesight, and needed to be hospitalized for a number of weeks. These children were instrumental in getting this orphanage built as they showed us how urgently it was needed and the wonderful lively and fun personality of David was inspirational.
I hardly recognized David and Jonah when I saw them this year. Both look so healthy, and have grown so much and are happy and talkative. Jonah is now in nursery class, studying away, while David is about to start studying at a school for the blind. The changes in all the orphans since last year is heart-warming. From just a bit of love and care, they now have a bright future ahead.
The Moving Mountains Trust
I worked with the Moving Mountains Trust, a small Belfast based charity that works at grass-routes level in Kenya and Nepal supporting street kids and orphans and working on a range of projects for example constructing clinics, orphanages and classrooms in areas where they are so badly needed. Most of their work is based in the slums of Kibera in Nairobi. Indeed money raised by me in 2004 helped construct a clinic in Kibera. This clinic benefits the whole slum area.
It is most definitely the unique point about the charity in that each child is nurtured with an emphasis on helping him or her to really achieve their dreams and ambitions in life, and to be allowed to be kids in a world where too often they are treated as animals.
Every year Gavin Bate (founder of the Moving Mountains Trust) holds a number of huge camps around Kenya with his company Adventure Alternative. These camps are like a huge holiday for the kids and gives them medical checks and lots of activities. By doing this they are given hope for the future and an ambition to become something. It is at these times that charity staff meets with the Kenyan volunteer leaders who indicate which children are promising students, which ones would benefit from a course in driving/cooking etc.
Now the schools, which actively accept street kids, have an added incentive; because of the projects the charity offers to them, such as renovation, maintenance, provision of western volunteer teachers and providing facilities such as kitchens.
You can donate money to help maintain this orphanage or other projects, or find out more information about the charity and its work by looking at the website (www.movingmountains.org.uk) or by contacting Louise (louise.collier@atkinsglobal.com) or Gavin Bate (gavin@adventurealternative.com) who set up the charity.
Louise Collier's Wagai News - September 2005
I have produced this short newsletter to illustrate the work that I have been involved with in Kenya during the summers of 2004 and 2005.
I wish to thank you all for all your kind support and for helping me make all this work possible. You have all helped either though financial support, prizes for fund-raising activities, donations of children’s clothes not to mention the moral support many of you have provided.
Hopefully, this newsletter will show you where your money etc has gone, and shows how little can go a long way…
In the beginning…
My dream all began Christmas 2003 when I was planning a trip to Africa. I went to see Gavin Bate (founder and director of the charity The Moving Mountains Trust) giving a presentation about Mount Kilimanjaro, which I was planning to climb. We got talking, things went from there so that in June 2005 I found myself in the village of Wagai, located in rural west Kenya, approximately 1 hour north-west of the city of Kisumu in the vicinity of Lake Victoria where I was to work for 6 weeks…
Wagai - 2004
My primary task was to teach geography and science in Wagai Primary School. This I did three days a week. In addition, I became involved with a voluntary organization operating in the local area called the Amani Child Development Programme. The Reverend Kenneth Wachianga, a local Anglican Priest, administers the Amani Programme. This organization prior to 2004, when I became involved, supported approximately 80 orphans in the area through provision of clothes, medicine and food. The organization is operated on a voluntary basis.
The area, although agriculturally rich, has a high population density, low standards of health and hygiene and high mortality due to AIDS and a range of hygiene related illnesses. There are a large number of orphans in the area, some very young, and many of these children have nobody to care for them, and have a bleak future ahead of them.
Most of these orphans, many very young, were living with ‘guardians’, either grand parents or older siblings who realistically cannot care for them properly.
My involvement with Amani consisted of visiting community groups, primary schools and clinics to give hygiene sanitation awareness talks and visiting these orphans in their homes and meeting their guardians.
Faced with some very shocking situations, it became clear that an orphanage was urgently needed for many of these children. I invited the Moving Mountains Trust to meet the Amani children, and from there plans arose to build an orphanage for particularly ‘needy’ cases in the area.
Orphanage Construction - 2005
In July 2005 I returned to Wagai with the Moving Mountains Trust where the charity was busy constructing an orphanage for 24 children at a site called Ollamba. This orphanage was being constructed as part of a Gap-Year Camp, where 52 students from Ireland and the UK work closely with local ‘street kids’ on projects, including but not limited to construction of the orphanage. I assisted with the construction (well the painting at least...) of this orphanage.
I also returned to the Amani children laden with lots of clothes kindly donated from my sponsors in Ireland. We had a big party with the kids, and it was like Christmas day for them. With money that was donated, we purchased sacks of rice, maize meal (which is used to make a dish called ‘Ugali’, the staple diet in the region), kidney beans, cooking fat, sugar and tea – enough to feed approximately 15 children for nearly 2 months on only €200!!!
The rest of the money donated in 2005, was given to the Moving Mountains Trust to help start up the new orphanage at Ollamba.
The story of David & Jonah
One of the saddest cases I came across in 2004 was that of David and his siblings. While on one of my rounds in 2004 we came across, 6 children whose mother was dead, and father an alcoholic who had more or less abandoned his children. David was almost dead when we found him. We immediately took David (aged 5), Jonah (Davids twin), Samuel (aged 3) and Phina (aged 7) away from the father, as they were very ill. Up to 25 worms were extracted from their stomachs and all were seriously malnourished.
In David’s case, he was so badly malnourished that he had permanently lost his eyesight, and needed to be hospitalized for a number of weeks. These children were instrumental in getting this orphanage built as they showed us how urgently it was needed and the wonderful lively and fun personality of David was inspirational.
I hardly recognized David and Jonah when I saw them this year. Both look so healthy, and have grown so much and are happy and talkative. Jonah is now in nursery class, studying away, while David is about to start studying at a school for the blind. The changes in all the orphans since last year is heart-warming. From just a bit of love and care, they now have a bright future ahead.
The Moving Mountains Trust
I worked with the Moving Mountains Trust, a small Belfast based charity that works at grass-routes level in Kenya and Nepal supporting street kids and orphans and working on a range of projects for example constructing clinics, orphanages and classrooms in areas where they are so badly needed. Most of their work is based in the slums of Kibera in Nairobi. Indeed money raised by me in 2004 helped construct a clinic in Kibera. This clinic benefits the whole slum area.
It is most definitely the unique point about the charity in that each child is nurtured with an emphasis on helping him or her to really achieve their dreams and ambitions in life, and to be allowed to be kids in a world where too often they are treated as animals.
Every year Gavin Bate (founder of the Moving Mountains Trust) holds a number of huge camps around Kenya with his company Adventure Alternative. These camps are like a huge holiday for the kids and gives them medical checks and lots of activities. By doing this they are given hope for the future and an ambition to become something. It is at these times that charity staff meets with the Kenyan volunteer leaders who indicate which children are promising students, which ones would benefit from a course in driving/cooking etc.
Now the schools, which actively accept street kids, have an added incentive; because of the projects the charity offers to them, such as renovation, maintenance, provision of western volunteer teachers and providing facilities such as kitchens.
You can donate money to help maintain this orphanage or other projects, or find out more information about the charity and its work by looking at the website (www.movingmountains.org.uk) or by contacting Louise (louise.collier@atkinsglobal.com) or Gavin Bate (gavin@adventurealternative.com) who set up the charity.
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Gavin visited our school in clonmel Ireland and i was amazed by the great achievements of this charity.keep up the good work!
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