During the trustees’ visit to Embakasi all the Karibuni sponsored children were brought together. 

“Kenyan schools were on mid-term break and all our sponsored children were asked to come to school, where as well as waving at us they got lunch.”

Robert from Tharaka has aimed to support people in poverty in various situations, from drugs and homelessness to HIV/AIDS.  He founded the Naledi initiative, which works with vulnerable girls in Kenya who have become pregnant and shunned within their community, so they can learn the skills they need to move forward in their lives without being forced into early marriage or a life of dependence and hopelessness. He has also served as a counsellor at the Kenya and South Africa Global Youth Peace Summit, and has 

now been accepted by the Institute of Emerging Visionaries in California for a three year intensive course. The Institute aims to foster a generation of young visionary leaders dedicated and equipped to serve humanity. Robert’s aim is to restore hope and self-sufficiency for vulnerable youth in Kenya.                                                                            

“Dear Karibuni

I am scripting this letter to convey my honest and genuine gratefulness and appreciation to you for sponsoring my studies. First of all I would like to express great appreciation on behalf of all those luckily and financially sponsored by you. No appreciation is enough for great kindness. But here, I still want to thank you all for your kindness, which has provided me with hope and courage to live a better life. You are bighearted and compassionate people who magnanimously and selflessly gave away your hard earned money to help me in my secondary and college studies so I’d become a better version of myself- I am so privileged and humbled to have received this sponsorship and would like to express my heartfelt gratitudes for being there for me.

I recently graduated from the Kenya Medical Training college on 5th of I recently graduated from the Kenya Medical Training college on 5th of December 2019 with a Diploma in health promotion and community health. The monetary help you offered facilitated me to pay for my learning costs and I attribute all this success to you. Your kind favour also motivates me to help others in need and I attribute all this success to you. I will use the knowledge and skills that I have acquired in school to make my community a better place through empowering people to take control of their own health.”

While in Nairobi, as well as visiting all our projects, and making home visits, Trustees had a meeting with our alumni students from Kibra and Kawangware who are either in the process of tertiary education, or who have already qualified, thanks to support from Karibuni. 

The students were divided into small groups to work out ways in which they could themselves support their project and mentor other children.

All over Kenya, students have graduated, thanks to their hard work and to Karibuni.

Each year Karibuni Children sponsors 7 children to join the Nursery school at Wesley Empowerment Centre, Njoro. The children to be sponsored are selected by the project Board on one simple criterion, namely that they should come from “the poorest of the poor”. This story may give you an idea of their circumstances.

Pauline, one of the children selected to join the Nursery in January 2020, lives with her grandmother, pictured here. Also living in the same one-roomed shack are her mother and four other grandchildren. The only income to the home is what Pauline’s mother can earn doing casual work such as washing and ironing laundry. There is very little such work, especially at present.

Each project Karibuni supports is separately governed by a local Management Board.

Karibuni Trustees meet with the members of these Boards on their annual visits to review, amongst other things, the progress of the children being sponsored, project finances, governance and administration. Pictured with visiting Trustees is the Board of the Wesley Empowerment Centre, Njoro, which runs a Nursery and Primary school.      

These four children were taken into the Baby Class at Kibra in January. They are twins Moses and Miriam, with Jayden and Emmanuel. Elizabeth is the nursery headteacher on the left, and Carol is the social worker from Kawangware, who now works with Makena at Kibra.

Nancy is the mother of the twins Moses and Miriam (sponsored). She has no husband and 4 children, and her income comes from casual laundry and selling greens, (sukuma wiki = “push / stretch the week”) making Ksh200/250 (approximately £1.50-£1.80 per day).