Meet Simon ...

Twiga Kids Relax ...

A Day in the Life ...

of some Twiga Children

Stand tall and help a child today

No man stands so tall as when he stoops to help a child. -Abraham Lincoln

• All these children have lost one or both parents, or have been abandoned.
• All these children need the support of Twiga Children's Centre for something - food, clothing, school fees, uniform or books

Aloys & Nyachuba - living alone

Edwin & Dennis - living alone

Eric, Nelson & Henry - living with sick mother

Risper, Brian and Elvin - living with mother

Befone, Cliff and Samwel - living with grandparents

Morfat, Boniface and Shaida - living with sick mother 

Lilian and Vincent - living with grandparents

Dominic, Mary, Osando, Getembe and Kemuma - living with grandparents

Nyang'au and Edwin - living with mother 

Josephat - living at Twiga CC

Benta - living at Twiga CC

Divina - living with mother

Brian - living with mother

Dorothy - living with mother

Davis & Vanessa - living with mother

Target for 2010

Amongst our children, there are a few who live alone with no adult supervision. They muddle along, with help from us, but they are not leading the lives of children.

They have to cook, clean, grow food, wash clothes, collect water as well as go to school and do their homework. It isn't the life a child should lead. Children need to play. They need to be children.

So, for these few, we have planned to build a residential home on our Twiga Children's Centre site. We already have one hut, which will serve as the dining/study area, kitchen/office and matron's room (we intend to have someone on site 24 hours).

So we need to build two more small huts, each containing 4 sets of bunks. We will use traditional materials to keep the cost down, so we need to buy cement for the floor, poles for the support walls, sheet steel for the roof and windows and doors.

We are in the process of getting quantity and cost estimates and when they are set, we will be launching an appeal.

These kids need a home where they feel secure, where they feel looked after, where they can get on with being a child, rather than a small adult.

So, look out for the appeal. We have set up a PayPal account and will soon have Mpesa to make life easier for our benefactors.

If a lot of people give just a few bob, it will soon mount up and you will know that you are helping to look after up to 16 orphans and homeless children.

That is worth a few shillings to you, isn't it?

Newbury Freegle - Thank You from Twiga

I was not disappointed when I arrived at Twiga with toys and games for the children! I will be thanking people personally when I can get the details back (my laptop died in Kenya), but in the meantime, the children have asked me to say a big thank you to everyone who donated toys, games and clothes.

In particular, we were given a giant snakes and ladders and a junior twister game, both of which were big hits with the whole age-range (3 to 16).

Several of the boys also asked to be taught chess. Many are already accomplished draughts players but as we had been given a set with both games, they wanted to try the game they knew nothing about.

I have to confess that, other than the movement of the pieces, I do not know a lot more than they do. I had to explain that it was a game of strategy, then left them to it. It kept them occupied for hours, with potential players staring over the shoulders of those actually involved in a match.

Toy cars and Barbies were distributed to the younger children. One little girl braided and re-braided the hair on a Barbie, each time running around showing everyone the "new" hairstyle - another hit!

So, all in all, Christmas came early at Twiga. Clothes were given to those most in need and money donated went towards the swing and food.

Oh, and we were also given some vegetable seed. The children were introduced to seed sowing on my last visit, so they attacked the chore with enthusiasm. Before I left, there were peas and bean plants up to 2" tall growing on the Twiga plot.

We also handed out seed to the children who had a plot at their home. I visited them just before I left and saw the loving care these children have put into sowing their seed.

So, this trip was another success. I left a lot of very happy children, which, if you saw the living conditions of some of them, you would wonder just how they survive!

Of course, they survive due to the untiring work of the Twiga volunteers, and Vincent and his wife, Abigael.

On the BBC - again

I have been asked to "appear" as a guest on Sarah Walker's afternoon programme on BBC Radio Berkshire to talk about Kenya and what I am trying to do there.

Sarah has a slot which her version of Desert Island Disks. But on the dates she proposed, I will actually be in Kenya. So we have fixed the date as the first weekday after my return to the UK - 14th December.

At least everything will be fresh in my mind, although, judging from previous returns from Kenya, everything will still be a jumble in my head - no change there then!

Oh well, at least I will be able to promote KCIS and the Twiga Children's Centre, and all publicity is good publicity, as they say, although I have my reservations about that.

Next Visit to Kenya

Here we go again

The weather may be the best we have had in England for a few months, but I am forsaking it for the sun (and rain?) of the Kisii Highlands ... again.

I have found in the past that in order to get to Kenya, I have to set a date and then raise the money. If I just wait until I have the money, I would never get there. It is rather like starting a family. If you wait until you can afford to have children, you will never have them!

So, I have set my leaving date, 10th November, so I will be in Kisii by the afternoon of 11th - whoopee!

There is a lot to do when I get there. First, we have the KCIS projects to start of continue, then I have to resurrect my business there. It is not dead, but rather comatose and needs and injection of enthusiasm - at least enthusiasm doesn't cost anything.

I would have liked to have the money to hire a vehicle while I am out there. A lot of people have asked me to visit their projects, in Kisumu, Kericho, Nakuru, but I suppose I will have to put up with matatu trips, unless someone coughs up a few quid before I leave. I also wanted to take some of the Twiga kids to see Lake Victoria.

Oh well, when in Rome ...

KCIS on the BBC, Part 2

Last Sunday saw the second and last feature by BBC Radio Berkshire on KCIS and theTwiga Children's Centre in Kisii on the Clare Catford show. It can be heard on iPlayer here, rolling it forward to about 2:37:00

It featured the voices of some of the children, Aloys, Dennis, Edwin and Esther, as well as a group of the children singing.

The BBC Radio Berkshire website also features an audio slideshow and a short writeup about KCIS.

KCIS on the BBC - Part 1

It didn't last long, about 4½ minutes, but it was very good - the first broadcast about our organisation.

The recordings were made, edited and put together by Nejra Cehic, a BBC researcher, and I think she has done a first class job. The only let-down was me, reading from a script - well judge for yourselves. Click on the link below and foward the player to 2:44:00 or thereabouts.

Clare Catford

The next episode will be next Sunday (16th August) at about 8:40, although this could change. Watch this space for an update.!

They Don't Just Work Hard ...

They play hard too.

I have just posted a slide show of the Twiga kids having a couple of hours play time. Just look at how they are enjoying themselves!

Catch-up

I have just spent a few weeks at Kisii, with a few visits to the site that will, one day, be the site of our orphanage.

At the moment, it is just a plot on the wooded side of a hill, very pleasant, with a little hut on the site. This will serve as the start of our project to build a home for about 40 to 50 children in need. We presently have 37 children on the register, but not all need residential help.

But, as ever with children, our first priority is food. So we have prepared an area of our land for growing vegetables. I say we, the kids did most of the hard work, and I have never seen so much enthusiasm, bearing in mind that some of these children have to cultivate their own little plots to grow their food just to survive.

Over the space of one weekend, a couple of hours each day, the plot was cleared of weed, tilled, and sifted by hand. Then seeds for nine different vegetables were sowed.

The following weekend, we visited the site, hoping that the seed had sprouted and we were not disappointed. We also sowed the seed from a butternut squash on this second weekend and I have been told that they have also taken.

The kids then built a fence around the seed beds to protect their seedlings from marauding chickens, goats, etc.

Since I have returned to the UK, I have been told that the butternut squash has sprouted and the other seedlings are being transplanted to grow.

So, phase 1 of our children's home project is off the ground, or rather, in the ground.

Now we need to rasie the money to build the residential block.

Hip, Hip Hooray - I'm On My Way!

After several aborted attempts to arrange my next trip to Kenya, it looks as if I have finally nailed a date to the calendar.

It has been difficult. I have to consider my aged mother, who I look after when I am in the UK. Then, although this is a working trip, I want to be able to see my girlfriend, who is presently abroad in Tanzania on business. Then, of course, I have to make sure I have enough money to do what I want to do when I get to Kenya.

So, Mum is sorted, my girlfriend will have returned home by mid-May and I have an, albeit small, pot of money, which should get me through a month in Kenya as long as I am very careful and don't spoil the kids at the orphanage. But there won't be enough to hire even a small car, so it will be matatu from Nairobi to Kisii, coach from Kisii to Malindi and another coach from Malindi to Nairobi - a nice round trip!

It is a shame, because taking interesting photos en route when using public transport is not easy. they will not stop the bus just so that I can take a picture of a giraffe or something - never mind, this is a working trip.

I hope to spend a few days in Nairobi so that I can visit a client, Rhino Ark, to discuss the way forward for their website, but this is their silly season, with the Rhino Charge taking place at the end of May. Maybe I could get to see that? No, probably not.

I have made many contacts in Kenya on various social networking sites and if I accept all invitations, I will also be visiting Homa Bay, Kisumu, Kericho, Machakos, Mombasa, ... etc.

That should be a lot of fun without a car! Oh well, maybe fate will smile upon me and provide me with one when I get there - somehow.

So, the 2nd weekend of May should find me at JKIA, loaded down with bags of toys, laptops, cameras, oh, and a few clothes, I suppose.

Water, water everywhere ...

... well, maybe not in Kenya. But it strikes me that a lot is wasted.

I have been reading a paper produced by the Peace Corps, where people have been describing how they use water every day, and one phrase struck me:

"... only the rich can afford to collect and store rainwater for personal use."

This was written by an American living and working in Maasailand, Kenya. And it got me thinking.

Where I stay in Kisii, water is brought up from a source and delivered in 25 litre drums, which are emptied into our 100 litre storage drum. It needs to be boiled for drinking.

But, when it rains in Kisii, the heavens open. The rain hits the corrugated iron roof and the noise is deafening. My host, Vincent dashes outside and strategically places bowls and buckets under the water gushing off the roof, but most is lost.

When I am in Nairobi, I stay with a family in a suburb of 3 and 4 bedroomed houses with running water and electricity (when either is working). The rains fall here just as violently and pours off the roof into the compound. Nothing is done to collect this free water.

I thought of all the houses I have visited in Kenya. Most are under corrugated roofs, which are perfect water collection and channelling devices. But none have guttering to collect the water.

Reading other Peace Corps reports, it appears that there are communities that collect rainwater during the rainy season(s) to supplement their water supply, but imagine if simple, and most importantly, cheap guttering could be provided. Households that enjoy any rain at all could have more water at their disposal, especially those living in the highlands to the East and West of the Rift Valley, who enjoy all-year-round rain.

So, fitting guttering to a "tin" roof is easy enough, but what about thatch? Can a thatched roof have a gutter?

The answer is yes, although it is suggested that it be larger so as not to become blocked by any stray straw that may wash down.

Of course, fixing guttering to a round hut will need a bit of thought, but where there's a will, there's a way.

Where do I get cheap guttering in Kenya? Here in the UK, plastic guttering is (relatively) cheap, and comes in all shapes and colours - unnecessary really in Kenya. But I have yet to see this sort of guttering in Kenya, although I am sure it is available.

A simpler solution is to make "V" guttering from two planks, nailed together. This should not cost a lot per house, but the down pipe could be a problem. Still, I have a few ideas about that and will try them out once I am on site.

Of course, the collection container must be covered so as to prevent mosquitoes breeding. The last thing we want to encourage is these little blood-suckers to breed right next to a house!

It is all a question of trial and error, adaptation to individual needs, and education!