Kupenda for the children

September Kupenda Visit

Board of directors for Kupenda Kenya Non Governmental Organization entitled "Kuhenza for the children's foundation" 

While in Kenya, we visited some of the schools most in need and just starting up like Marafa and Mjimboni. We also visited the homes of some of the children and had our first board of directors meeting as an NGO. We did a lot of boring but necessary administrative work including the 2009 budget, child sponsorship forms, etc. I’ll just highlight some of the events I thought you might find interesting.

 Stakeholder’s meeting on Disability

 Now that Kupenda is a registered NGO (Non Governmental Organization) in Kenya as opposed to a Community based organization, we were finally able to call a meeting of other important stakeholders, NGO’s and government agencies that could help or have helped children with special needs in the area. It was an all day meeting and a great start to partnering even more. We have already set up another meeting in a month or so and Action Kenya”, one of the groups there, is sponsoring it. I shared about Kupenda’s history and what we’ve done so far and others spoke about the needs in the area and it all led to a big discussion led by our Kenya director that seemed very promising.

Vocational training
 

In June we decided to start vocational training for Gede special school (for those who are deaf, have cerebral palsy or other physical disabilities) and Sir Ali special school (for those with mental disabilities).   They have been making bags and jewelry in the afternoons and loving it. As son as class is out the children at Gede (who board there) pull out their supplies and start creating. We are planning on having it for sale on the Kupenda website, in the office and anywhere else people think the items could be sold in order to support this training and Kupenda. We’ll post more information on this soon. We’re thinking this could be a great Christmas gift idea!

Parents meeting

 

 One of our biggest difficulties is encouraging the parents of children with disabilities in Kenya to take a role in the lives of their children. Without parents love and encouragement these children will have even more challenges. Therefore our Kenya director thought it might be effective for me to speak to them personally. The meeting went well and the parents even gave me a beautiful gift of shell necklaces and a bracelet. It also just so happened that one of the couples staying at A Rocha center with us happened to be the parents of a child with down syndrome with a beautiful story of there experience as parents which they shared at the meeting. The parents promised to take a bigger role in their children’s lives and to tell other parents about it.

 Pastors meeting

We had a meeting with a small number of pastors in the area who are concerned about disability. Two of the pastors have relatives that are disabled. They shared their stories with us of the challenges and what they want to do to help. They decided that our director should come to their churches to share more about Kupenda and that they would do their best to get their churches to sponsor at least one child each. They will have a facilitated discussion focused on this subject with a much larger group of pastors facilitated by Rev. Mangi and our director. Rev. Mangi shared about the current situation he is having with a young man’s father who is upset that his deaf son had converted from Islam to Christianity and “blamed” him for it.