BBC Feature

I am happy to report that although the broadcast was some time ago, by broadcasting standards, KCIS is still featured on the BBC Radio Berkshire website under the 'Faith' section.

There is still the audio slide show, narrated by Nejra Cehic, as well as the two features that were broadcast on 9th and 16th of August, featuring the voices of some of our children, notably Aloys, Edwin, Esther and Dennis, and of course, our local director, Vincent.

In the broadcasts, Nejra visits the home of Aloys and Nyachuba to see just how primitive their living conditions are. She also visits the site of the Twiga Centre where she sees the children's efforts to grow their own vegetables. The children can be heard playing and singing in the background.

These broadcasts give a very good audio idea of life for orphans and needy children in rural Kenya.

It is really worth a listen.

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.!

A Plug on the BBC

We at KCIS have had a bit of luck (and let's face it, we need some!)

A researcher at our local BBC radio station travels to different parts of Africa with a charitable organisation during her main holiday, and this year, she was sent to ... Kisii.

A colleague of hers at the radio station had been following the blog or Twitter and pointed this out to the researcher, who then contacted David and a meeting was set up before she left.

Once there, she met up with Vincent and Abigael as well as many of the Twiga kids. She recorded, interviewed and observed. The kids sang and Aloys recited a poem in Swahili. or the rest, we will have to wait until the transmission.

The feature will be broadcast in two parts on the Theological programme, this Sunday (10th August) and next. The first will be cut and edited sound bites, and the following week David will be speaking about the ongoing and future KCIS projects including, of course, the Twiga Children's Centre - if he doesn't dry up. What do they call it? Corpsing?

Of course, the other possible problem is David's potential for verbosity. Maybe corpsing would be a better option.

Oh well we will see - or hear - next week.

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!

Video on YouTube

One of our many projects in Kenya was to make a vegetable plot for the Twiga kids (orphaned and abandoned children). This we have now done, or rather, the kids did it under our supervision, and to find more enthusiasm would be difficult!

Many photos and some video were taken and have been compiled into a video, posted on YouTube.

Take a look here

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.