NAIROBI CHILDREN’S HOME.   VOLUNTEER WITH ORPHANS PROJECT, Kenya.

Nairobi children’s home/ orphanage is situated in Nairobi’s Lower Kabete area.
Established by the government to cater for neglected and orphan children, the home embraces a communal survival race on a thin track between despair and hope, life and death. With limited funding from the government, the home’s over 150 children’s lifestyle lacks in basics, a fact that paints a grave picture when compared with the rest of Nairobi’s beauty and opulence enjoyed by a few, as more than 50 percent of the city’s dwellers live below the poverty lines. Nairobi has risen in a single century from a brackish uninhabited swampland to a thriving modern capital faced with a number of globalization discontents. Despite these, Nairobi stands tall and proud as Africa’s Safaris capital – the only city in the world where one can see wild animals living naturally in the wild. The city never seems to sleep. The entire town has boundless energy, thriving human life and great contrasts where race, tribe and origin all become facets of a unique Nairobi character.
Together with Mombasa the two cities paint a vivid portrait of Kenya. They create a diverse melting pot of races and traditional and modern cultures, with a history as rich as the natural wealth, hospitality and topographical beauty that is truly African and could probably be found only in Kenya.

Nairobi Children’s home is a world of need, both material and emotional. It is a world where a smile and a pat on a child’s back makes all the difference, bringing out the humanity in a person and changes perceptions on things many take for granted day in day out. The home comprises of numerous departments that team up to see the home through a day as comfortably as possible. Once placed, a volunteer could decide to work in either of the departments – Cook for the children, feed them, teach them (there is an educational class within the home), help with laundry, mop the floor, give those who are sick their medication and soothe them to sleep one at a time. At present, the home is short of staff and most of the above chores are taken care of by a slim staff collectively with the children. The children are from different back grounds hence, have different emotional problems in addition to diseases that range from cerebral palsy to malaria and HIV/AIDS. Others are from broken homes, where they were physically abused. This category of children together with the HIV positive ones need special care, child psychiatric services and above all, friends whom they can trust and open up to – a motherly, fatherly, brotherly or a sisterly figure – a shoulder to lean on, sow hope and reap something in life. There are also those who have never known a mum or a dad – these are children who were either found abandoned by the road side or whose parents are long dead from HIV/AIDS. Therefore other than material insufficiencies, Nairobi children’s home is a mix of emotions that needs every one of us.                   

This program would best suit any one with a humane heart. Someone willing to reach out and inspire hope where there might be none, someone with a niche to leave the world a better place that he/she found it. This program would also suit groups of two to twenty with a common goal like fund raising to buy such home kitchen equipments or buy them enough food to take them through a month, six months or a year. Such groups could initiate projects like painting the home, buying more beddings, toys, books, medicine, expand the home building wise to accommodate more children comfortably. This is because Kenya produces an orphan every five minutes as results of deaths from HIV/AIDS and other ailments. The program is also a superb training opportunity for those aspiring to take up community based jobs in any of the world’s 199 developing countries. Note that most of the basic things the home badly needs can be acquired locally more cheaply and one needs not to bring material things to volunteer. A volunteer’s presence alone at the home is in its self an enormous blessing to not only the children, but Kenya as a whole. Volunteers are expected to take part in all duties to help staff in this location. Tasks included washing by hand, sweeping and helping cooking and other jobs that form an essential part of the running of these placements. Potential volunteers must understand this prior to booking.

This placement is suitable for people from all walks and types of life – with an interest in a fellow human beings’ plights and sufferings. For younger volunteers they should be able to bare hash realities of life. The children are young and can be demanding!!! But lots of fun with it.

Many who have visited East African cities, have an impression that, “Nairobi is East Africa’s hub of fun”. The city is awash with standard fun bobbling joints for the young and the old alike. Nairobi is the only city in the world where one can go for a game drive in the wild, thus, weekends out to the Nairobi National Park could be in order.
There is also the Nairobi Safari Walk, Animal orphanage, a giraffe and an elephant sanctuary, where one could get to kiss a giraffe lip to lip. For a cultural night out a visit to the Bomas of Kenya, will leave you thrilled and educated about various Kenyan traditional cultures, music and history. One could also climb Mount Longonot, two hours drive from the city, for skilled climbers, Inspire Kenya will be more than glad to organise the volunteers a climb up Africa’s second highest point – Mount Kenya. The mountain’s icy peaks of Batian (5199m) and Nelion (5,189m) are accessible only to experienced mountaineers,
Kenyans are uniquely hospitable people, intelligent and out going. A chat with them over a  drink after a hard day’s work could be equally as fun.     

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