The Orphanage in Nakuru – help us complete the construction so that the children will be safe there!
Picnic with children during the first stay of Foundation’s volunteers in January 2016 ;) We invite you for the trip, but come back to us right after it!
Current State – since May 2020
With the end of our winter Regina and the children moved to the orphanage which was built with the great help of our Donors. Today it’s time for showing the interiors.
This is how it look like in early summer 2020. Most of the furnishings and the furniture come from donations and the previous houses where they had lived since 2011. At the same time, they set up that orphanage. The walls need painting, and the floors require finishing.
There is a lack of window covers, curtain rods, curtains, window shades. The house is currently exposed and the interior is open to view through the windows. The children don’t have wardrobes, and we haven’t finished all rooms yet. For this moment, the house’s residents (including the children and their caregivers) occupy the living room and a few rooms visible below. We managed to buy some of the doors, sanitary ware, and prepare all the installations. We also arranged tiles in boys’, girls’, and babies’ bathrooms. We did the same thing in the toilet downstairs.
Now it’s time to build in closets in the children’s rooms and complete the works mentioned above so that the house is genuinely safe – both for healthy and disabled children who are under Regina’s and Steve’s care.
Select and click on the donation’s amount for finishing work in the house
After that, the DotPay payment page will appear where you will be able to donate. In 2020 we need funds to ensure that the children’s housing conditions don’t endanger them regarding construction and sanitation.
PLN 25.00 |
PLN 50.00 |
PLN100.oo |
other amount |
You can also deposit to the account: 65 2490 0005 0000 4520 4418 9818 (Alior Bank), transfer title: “Kenya Orphanage – donation”
Construction Log October 2019 – March 2020
[ You can find the history of the orphanage and the entire construction site at the bottom of this page, just below this update]
It was a tough six months, primarily both for the children and their caregivers from Nakuru orphanage. On October 2, 2019, we received information about all the children and their caregivers’ eviction by the end of 2019. It was due to the intent of selling the building which they rented then. [ To read more about the details of October events please CLICK here ] We had begun, even then, the construction work on their final home. However, the building’s condition was unfinished and austere even on the 1st November.
Then we asked everyone for mobilization and maximum aid. Thanks to our donors who actively supported us in the fall – mainly, we can’t forget to mention one of our regular donors who donated considerable value.
As a result, a miracle happened, and the construction works went full steam ahead. However, the felicity lasted only a couple of days. Torrential downpours during the rainy season began in Kenya. They were exceptional intense this year. The government declared a natural disaster. Unfortunately, the flood took many casualties. The works considerably slowed down again. The day before Christmas, we were looking for a solution dramatically. We managed to accomplish a building shell, but the interiors were a direct threat.
Meanwhile, It was only seven days left until the end of the year. The specter of removal was hanging over several children, including babies and disabled ones. The country’s drama, the flood, and protracted negotiations with the landlord finally convinced him to prolong the eviction period. [ To read more about the details of December you can CLICK here ] – this time, the deadline was February 29, 2020.
The 
intensive works on the building’s interior and installations began. It lasted over eight weeks. Further action was only possible thanks to your regular support.
Regina and Steve packed their entire nine-year belongings (gathered for children and orphanage) and prepared to move in the last couple of days.
Gratitude to one of our donors for his support, for we can see the building’s final phase in the photos(from backstage) above.
Finaly the 29th February 2020, came. It was the moving day.
After nine years of wandering and living in rented dwellings, they moved into their own house from which nobody can throw them away. [ You can read about the details of this day here– CLICK]
The fundraiser is still going on, for the house is mainly unfinished, and therefore isn’t safe for the children.
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A COMPLETE HISTORY OF CONSTRUCTION AND ORGIN OF THIS UNIQUE CHILDREN’S HOUSE.
„“When I enter the room, Joshua grabs my legs and essentially knocks me over, trying not to lose my balance I grab the chair on which Rael is lying
down, 3-year old Naomi is running to help across the linoleum, and from the other end, alarmed 7-year old Timothy and they run into each other, basically ramming me at the same time instead of saving. We all look at each other with seriousness estimating the damage, and then we all explode with laughter.
Regina appears in the doors of the living room, and asking for the reason of this general joy, she passes little Esther onto my hands at the same time, sitting down herself on the floor in order to change Mari and Deborah
OWe talk about the failure in Swahili and English, and on the side Jane, who just left the kitchen, is also listening. Regina asks her to fold the other children’s washed trousers and tights, and Jane, having sat down comfortably on the couch, begins to fold them with her feet and lays them tidily on top of each other, smoothing them at times with her heel, and at times with her calf. She does not use her hands due to a malformation. Several minutes pass when we gather the kids – Regina uses the opportunity to stroke Rael and hug Mari, who is only several months old, as she is nervous today.
The sound of a parked car comes from behind the window, which means that dad has returned home. The general noise and chaos allow to assume that Ramsey and Charles have arrived as well. The former rushes into the house like a thunder, while the latter does so moving on his knees, although with no less enthusiasm, which cerebral palsy has not reduced in any way. The children welcome Steve shouting “daddy!” and rush into his arms. Before the dad takes the smallest child into his arms, he will wash his hands in the bowl, as there is no running water and it is brought from the external tank.
Sitting in the epicentre of these events, I look around with a certain disbelief. After many years of being used to working with children and orphanages in Africa, I know that the atmosphere can be disheartening, the mutual relations very formal, and the children do not have a right to speak, are ordered to be silent and supposed to be “nice”. Meaning invisible and not causing any trouble. Beating and hitting in the head is also an everyday occurrence.
It is different here. It is also not a “shelter”, where in return for funding and donations from people, the children are kept for years – until adulthood or earlier escape. Regina broke the pattern. It has turned out that preparing a child’s documentation for adoption is not impossible in Kenya. As she says herself – only in a good family a child has the chance to grow up properly and spread their wings. This is the reason why her aim above all else is genuine adoption of children and many of them have already found their way to Kenyan families and international adoption.
Watching the kids, we may not realize that they were found in dustbins, come from incestuous relationships, which there equals being condemned to death, saved from the streets, after a kidnapping, given away by the mother from a criminal family in order to save it from the same fate, as well as starved and abused by the mother, which was a form of compensation for the fact that she is horribly beaten herself.
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Today they are facing eviction. This non-public children’s home has been functioning since 2011 in a small, rented, private house in the city (Nakuru, Kenya) and the owner has ordered its abandonment with the day of June 1st. The rent absorbed 80% of the income, while it could have served the children, who go to schools (including special schools) and kindergartens while Regina stays home with the youngest five. When talking with volunteers of the foundation, who spent several days there in January and have known the establishment for a year, it turns out there is a property in Nyanuki, 2 ares (200 km2 = 77,2 mi2) with the view on Mount Kenya and access to water from a stream within the property. Regina inherited the land from her parents and it remains unused. One of four Regina’s biological daughters – Angie, currently aiding her mother in administration matters and looking after the older children, is very unhappy with the fact.
After several weeks of discussions, checking the area, considering the options, the decision is made – let’s build. We know who with, we know where, and, most importantly, we know for whom. Meanwhile, we compensated for the rent arrears on the previous landlord. We sent our children to schools. Moreover, thanks to our Foundation’s shop, we brought to life extra meals and milk purchases for the youngest children. However, monthly rent generates costs. We began collecting funds for the unique and deliberate project and the construction itself. During May campaign http://kilometrydobra.pl/dzieci-kenia we gathered the sum of PLN 5000 for a good start.
At the turn of 2017 and 2018, there is a breakdown. Only little funds come in. It comes out that we cannot use the land in Nanyuki for construction. The Kenyan government changed the law, and children living in orphanages must remain within the same county. Nanyuki is too far away. We had to act quickly, as the construction project and cost estimate was just ready. The current children’s whereabouts bother the inspectors from social organizations. Regina and Steve neither count on much help nor purchase them the land for the orphanage. They are grateful for the support of the construction. Therefore, they established a fund among a local community in 2018. The local society has known them for years and the volunteers who stayed with them in the past. Together, after a few months, we managed to gather resources appropriate to buy the ground for the orphanage. It is in the area of Nakuru, where they currently live.
Looking for the right part of the world lasted many weeks. The location, distance from schools and medical centers, and access to water and the land’s legal status were important. In August 2018, we signed the act of land purchase. The orphanage is the owner of the ground in the agreement. The cost of the construction itself, connecting the media, reached over KES 12 million. After moving the structure to near Nakuru, the expenses decreased by KES 1.5 million, which is equal to USD 105, 000.00 (over PLN 380, 000.00).
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This children’s home will be mostly financially independent – without rent, with water, organizing projects providing the upkeep, such as raising goats for milk and meat and the production of yoghurt, which is currently located in the city and a tiny kitchen without the possibility of raising goats, and therefore only on a micro scale. This home will be more than a home – it will be a local centre of intervention, which does not exist there yet at all. It will also be a home from which the children will find their way into caring hands.
We have the land and the project, and the building ascends. They split the structure up in three phases to finish a few rooms and move there the children. In this way, we want to save on rent. We were hoping that we would finish it until 2020. However, the letter of eviction surprised us with effect from December 31, 2019! So little is missing! We could already prepare the part of the building ready for living in a few weeks. Unfortunately, the budget has ended. Without aid, we can’t go any further. The children will find a safe harbor with your help. Regina and Steve have notarized the land for the orphanage and the project. Moreover, they have secured the center’s operating for several dozen years, even in the event of their death.
The Foundation has been supporting actions in Africa for many years now, and Kenya is another country after Tanzania and Cameroon where we can do something important together. We finance kindergarten, education in primary and secondary schools, many students, in order to make the inhabitants of the countries of the Global South not beneficiaries, but partners of our actions.
The house will serve for many years, and many children (dreaming of home, mom, and dad) will go to families from there. You can contribute to their new life, working as a Volunteers gaining Donors, supporting us in the fundraiser program, or add funds to the Foundation’s account:
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Foundation name and address: Fundacja Mają Przyszłość, ul. Młyńska 45, 62-070 Konarzewo
Alior Bank PL 44 2490 0005 0000 4600 3246 9899
Tytuł przelewu: „Children’s home in Kenya – donation”
Payment in EURO: PL69 2490 0005 0000 4600 1195 6471
SWIFT / BIC CODE ALIOR BANK: ALBPPLPW
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Thank you on behalf of myself, the volunteers and the children.
Agnieszka K. Zywert
President and Volunteer of the Foundation
In January 2016 we visited Regina and Steve.
You can find full descriptions and pictures of their days on our blog:
http://sercedlaafryki.blogspot.com/2016/01/piatek-8-stycznia-cz2-dzieci-z-dzomu.html
http://sercedlaafryki.blogspot.com/2016/01/sobota-9-stycznia-wyjatkowosc-domu-dziecka.html
http://sercedlaafryki.blogspot.com/2016/01/niedziela-dom-dziecka-nakuru-piknik.html
We also managed to provide a Sumptuous Christmas 2017 (details in the link below):
And here is our picnic with orphanage children during the first stay ;)
Adopting a specific orphanage child costs USD 700 per year. Because it is higher than for children having one or two parents. Two persons/families can share an adoption between them. However, they must be mature enough to share custody of a child. The disabled children also live in the orphanage, and we try to help them just like we aid the healthy ones. All the details of the adoption program are on our website(the link is below). They include our e-mail address, payment options, what to write to us, and how they contact the child. Please necessarily read the questions and the answers on a program website to make the conscious decision before signing the declaration: www.majaprzyszlosc.org.pl/adopcja-serca
If you cannot make a standing commitment, but you want to help. Then you can always become an Adoption Grandmother, Grandfather, Aunt, or Uncle to settle the children’s financial resources with arrears. It is when a Parent has financial troubles or has failed to fulfill their obligation. It allows us to keep children in schools regardless of the lack of diligence or the Parent’s abilities. The deposit amount is then discretionary.
Details of Occasional Support is here: become a member of our Adoptive Family