IVHQ Outreach weekend – an optional two-day trip to visit surrounding programs and experience wildlife in Kenya.
First, Kitendo Children’s Charity Slum Project near Naivasha, a school for 64 students from ages 3 to 6 years old. It was started in 2009 with teachers giving lessons under trees. Now they have 4 buildings, some of which were built by volunteers.
Down the street approximately 6,000 people live in corrugated slum houses. An upgrade from days when homes were made of wood and many burned in a fire. Chickens and sheep walk around freely. Clothes are pinned to lines, strung between roofs.
Children at KCC
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We visited the IDP (internal displaced persons) camp after having lunch in Gilgil. It was created after the 2007 election where the winning party was accused of rigging. Rioting followed. Homes were burned. Now 51 of those families live in the IDP camp in the Rift Valley area. During the rainy season, water floods their homes. Parents hold their children through the night until it recedes.
Teacher Joyce, below, spoke to us about the community. Men work at the nearby cliffs, breaking boulders. Women weave bags, make jewelry, or a catch a bus to the next town to work on flower farms. The children ages 3 to 6 years attend the two-room school at the edge of camp. They’re bright and lively. I wish I could have mirrored their energy but I think the pressing need for food, school supplies and general support in the area was wearing on me.
Outside IDP camp just before the sky opened up
The Jam 