What is it?
The Problem
It is estimated that up to 900,000 children in Kenya have been orphaned by HIV/Aids, and with 15% of the population carrying the virus, an increasing number of children are caught up in the epidemic. Many of these children end up with no one and nothing, and have to fend for themselves on the streets. Today in Mombasa there are over 30,000 street children who lack the skills and education to help themselves. Without the means to make any kind of living, they are subject to severe poverty, abuse, drugs and crime. Anybody who has witnessed boys living on the streets has had a life changing experience. It is impossible to communicate how truly awful it is, how to put it into words.
What Do Grandsons Do?
The Grandsons of Abraham Rescue Centre in Mikindani near Mombasa has been working since 1995 offering street children shelter, food, and basic education.
The organisation can be summarised in the following way;
- Long term
- Highly respected
- Established and run by the local community
- Making a real and radical difference to many lives
- Run by skilled and reliable staff
- Having a vision for the future which will result in self perpetuation, self finance and an incalculable wider effect
The organisation started out as an on street ‘soup kitchen’, then provided tented accommodation, later building the current centre in Mikindani. Street children are invited to the centre for rehabilitation, education, care and where possible, reunification with their families. So far the organisation has worked closely with over 2000 children, and successfully relocated over 400 of them. Facilities at the centre are very basic and run down. Sanitation is very poor, kitchen facilities almost non existent and sleeping arrangements consist of overcrowding on broken bunk beds with few sheets and blankets, and insufficient mosquito nets. A ‘classroom’ has been patched together on the roof of the building, with tarpaulins to keep out the worst of the weather. Occasionally street girls with nowhere else to go, sleep up here until other accommodation can be secured for them. Since mid 2005, in addition to local paid staff and volunteers, the centre has been accepting International volunteers through the organisation "i-to-i".
Children who have developed significantly, and for whom reunion with relatives is impossible, have the option of moving to the second centre at a farm purchased a few years ago to the north of Mombasa, in Kikambala. There, around 20 boys and a caretaker grow maize, rice, and a host of fruits, as well as tending to livestock. They gain an education at the farm, living and sleeping on site in temporary accommodation. They also have the opportunity of learning rural and farming skills, and basic trades. Despite the very basic conditions, the boys currently accommodated at Kikambala are happy, well-balanced individuals who have significantly progressed from the ‘raw’ street boys they were upon arrival at Mikindani.