From left: Sylvia Gaita is part of A Million Reasons Foundation, Wanjiru
Kinuri works with disabled children at Ubuntu Therapy and Resource
Centre, Sammy Ondimu Ngareis the founder of Askari ni Mwanadamu
initiative and Mariam Mell’Osiime Mpaata is a women and youth mentor in
Mombasa. PHOTOS| COURTESY
A lot of people give for the wrong reasons – for recognition, to
advance personal agendas or to make them feel good about themselves.
This week, we look talk to four individuals who serve the community
around them with no reward expected.
Sylvia
Gaita, 30, is part of A Million Reasons Foundation. The foundation
donates underwear and sanitary pads to girls in Mombasa county to keep
them in school.
We all
have that singular experience that changes the way we look at the world.
For 30-year-old Sylvia, it was meeting an 11-year-old girl in a school
in Kilifi who had sold pads and underwear that had been donated to her
so that she could stay in school and study without worrying about her
period. Sylvia wasn’t happy; why was this young girl throwing away a
chance to get an education?
“She
told me, “Naelewa elimu ni muhimu, lakini wewe unaangalia maisha ya
mbele. Mimi nashughuilikia maisha ya sasa (I know education is
important, but while you are thinking about my future, I am thinking
about my here and now),” Sylvia remembers. It struck Sylvia how, unlike
this little girl, she was privileged to have the luxury of worrying
about the future. Thus was born her resolve to fight for women born into
poverty.
Sylvia
finally had a chance to do something about it when a friend, John
Kiarie, proposed that they start the foundation. “He was working around
Kilifi and he saw how girls dropped out of school in upper primary
because they didn’t have sanitary towels or even underwear. That is how A
Million Reasons was born,” she recalls.
Today, the foundation has 3,200 girls under
its wings in primary schools around Kilifi. Sylvia, who works as a
public relations consultant, has been tasked with rallying people for
donations.
“We take pads and
panties, not cash. We (also) do regular tours of the schools (during
which we do) mentorship. I feel good when the girls look at me and see
that also they can have a life outside the home, that they can also have
careers.”
The girls call her
Furaha because for them, her presence represents a chance at happiness.
She doesn’t intend to disappoint them. But the fight, she says, is far
from over. “I can get them panties and pads, and help keep them in
school, but I know that it isn’t over. I can’t solve all their problems,
but keeping them in school is a good start.”
***
Wanjiru Kinuri, 33, works with disabled children at Ubuntu Therapy and Resource Centre in Maai Mahiu
Wanjiru
Kinuri grew up watching her grandmother lovingly and tirelessly take
care of her special needs daughter (Wanjiru’s aunt). This is what
inspired her to do what she does today, and where she got her passion
for working with children with special needs. She doesn’t have children
of her own yet but she loves being around children.
“Working
with children with special needs is the only thing I wanted to do when I
graduated from high school,” Wanjiru, a trained special needs educator,
says.
Caring for these children
entails therapy and structured learning. She spends her days teaching
them to use their limbs, and stimulating their brains. However, as much
as she enjoys that, Wanjiru is most passionate about advocacy for
special needs issues. She enjoys going out to the community around them
to get the people to understand these children better.
“What
breaks my heart the most is having parents who are struggling with
acceptance of their little ones. A lot of them do,” she says. She feels
that it is her duty to help them get to that point where they accept
their children as they are.
“I
help parents love their children by getting them to see that every
family has problems; it is just that the challenges they have to deal
with are different and maybe more physically visible,” she says.
While
she has made some progress with regard to acceptance with the people
around her, there is the constant struggle against the stigma. “There
are still those families in the rural areas who lock up their disabled
children out of shame and the myths out there,” she says. An ideal world
for her is where there is inclusion, and where parents learn to love
the children that they are blessed with no matter the scope of their
abilities.
***
Sammy Ondimu Ngare, 37, is the founder of Askari ni Mwanadamu initiative
“I
know that on my way here, people on the street were looking at me and
thinking, ‘That cop could be looking for someone to arrest so that he
can get a bribe’,” Sammy tells me when we sit down to chat.
Sammy
is a police man. The negative perception that the public has of
policemen and women unnerves him. Changing this perception is his
agenda. “I like to think of myself as the cop with a difference. I do
not take bribes. I have never taken a bribe,” he says.
When
he was still new in the police force, he set out to spread this
positivity through his music because he thought it would be the most
efficient way to help him spread his message of positivity. Then, in
2011, while shooting a video for his song Habella in a city slum, he met
two little children aged eight and nine who had never set foot in a
classroom.
“I am a father. I have
three children of my own. I just couldn’t walk away,” he says. “I knew I
needed to get involved in the lives of the women and children I was
meeting.”
He set up The Maxfactor
Centre in Rongai where he looks after children orphaned by HIV and
living with HIV. There has been good progress for the centre. “I have
three children in primary school and three in secondary schools,” he
says proudly.
Sammy has partnered
with the Kenya Film and Classification Board, through which he tours
schools to talk to youth about crime. He also serves food to street
families. “A lot of youth committing crime on the streets are children
from street families. I reach out to them and talk to them about crime.
Once a year, I share lunch with groups of street families.” What vision
does he have for the world? “An ideal world for me would be where there
is no gap between the rich and the poor,” he says.
***
Mariam Mell’Osiime Mpaata is a women and youth mentor in Mombasa.
Mariam
stumbled into mentorship. One minute she was a housewife looking for a
platform for her son to spend his energy and the next, she was director
of Junior Stars, a junior football club in Mombasa.
It was through this club that she met vulnerable girls who she took under her wing.
Then,
three years ago, she met Jemima Kasari. When they first met, Jemima
Kasari was 14 years old who was part of her mentorship programme.
It
was after one of these mentorships sessions that Mariam received a call
from Jemima’s mother. “Her mother told me that she was in the ICU with a
raptured appendix and that her medical bill had risen to Sh2 million,”
Mariam recalls.
That was a year
ago. Mariam went to Jemima in hospital and has now taken her in like a
daughter. Mariam makes sure to talk to Jemima every day and when she is
not running the football club, she spends her time raising funds for her
Jemima’s treatment.
“At first,
Jemima had a colostomy bag but she underwent a successful surgery last
year and is now much better. She has even resumed school,” Mariam says.
While
Mariam has been to raise some funds, there is still a Sh2 million bill
that needs to be paid before this family can move on with their lives.
For her 39th birthday on the 18th of this month, Mariam is hosting a
party at Jemima’s house where instead of birthday gifts, friends will
contribute money to cater for Jemima’s bill.
“I believe that there is good in the society. It’s just that those who want to help often do not know how to do that,” she says.
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