Friends Children Centre

phanages in different parts of Kenya. Our main goal is to relief poverty, promote access to quality education and welfare services to needy children in Kenya. Our vision is to help impoverished children become self-supported adults
Four objectives keep us anchored to that vision:
1. Meeting the Spiritual needs : Children deprived of any real, lasting hope are at risk. When introduced to the incomparable love of Jesus Christ, children are introduced to a new and accurate vision of themselves: that they are of deep, intrinsic, and eternal value. Nurturing children into mature disciples of Jesus Christ protects them from substance abuse, crime and s*x trade.
2. Meeting the physical needs : Children with little to no shelter or food and not even basic medical care are at risk of being exploited. Meeting the physical needs of children protects them from substance abuse, crime and s*x trade.
3. Meeting the educational needs : When honest, sustained work is an actual possibility, the financial allure of substance abuse, crime and s*x trade industry lessens immensely. A quality education and/or practical vocational training gives children the means to opportunities for a future.
4. Meeting emotional needs : Children disconnected from the loving care of concerned, responsible adults are at risk. To grow and nurture children inside the love of a family protects them from substance abuse, crime and s*x trade.



2. OUR STORY

2.1 Origin
Friends children centre was started on the 13th January,2003, with only six children and one teacher at the time called teacher Grace who is still teaching in the centre to date. The centre was started as a self help group made of 5 Christian believers who were moved by the challenges that were facing children in a Kawangware as a large number of this children was turning to the street. Later on three of the five members pulled off and two remained; Fredrick Ojiambo and Grace Ayekha. By the end of 2003 the population of the children grew to 80 children coming daily to our small centre. This forced us to look for a spacious place to minister to more children. In 2005 the population of the children had grown to over 250 children coming daily and this forced us to start looking for partnership with the churches in Kawangware inorder to help us meet our objectives with this children. Since 2003, the school has helped more than 500 children complete their basic education and reintegrate them into high schools to help them advance their studies. Our current population is 460 children, out of this 150 children are orphans that we are helping. 70 children come from single families. In 2012 we had a population of 300 children but this number reduced drastically in the year 2013 because of different factors like food and lack of foster families to bring up the children. Most children ended up in the street.
2.2 Exploitation of children in substance abuse, crime and s*x trade. Cases of children being exploited in substance abuse, crime and s*x trade in Kawangware has a long history. Most of the children who get exploited are those children who have no access to physical, emotional, educational and spiritual needs. An example of this children is a boy name Njehia who was introduced to drugs when he was 8 years old because he was disconnected from a loving care of a concerned, responsible adult. This boy had no father and the mother was a commercial s*x worker and a drug trafficker. At the this early age Njehia started selling drugs and using heroine and Ma*****na. He is now 20 years old still living in drugs and a community write-off. He engages in criminal activities in order to to buy drugs. He is also HIV positive because he has been r***d many times! Efforts to rescue him were not fruitful because he completely lost hope. Njehia’s story is always a sad story that we as a Centre seek to stop amongst the children in Kawangware. Sylvia aged 16 years is another Rescue story; she was brought to our centre four years ago. Before the rescue Sylvia was living with her Mom who was HIV positive and a commercial s*x worker. Due to the mothers illness, she was forced to drop out of school at the age of 10 years and started selling alcohol in order to help the mom meet the needs of her siblings. At the age of 13 Sylvia was working as a commercial s*x worker; we received the news about her and went and took her back to school. She completed her education and currently doing a vocational training in Kitale Kenya. Sylvia gave her life to Jesus and she is now doing well and she says she would love to write a book about her life in future. Today Kawangware has close to 420,000 children at risk. If the lord provides we can have more children like Sylvia rescued and helped to live like any other child in this world and also prevent more from not walking the path of substance abuse like Njehia. In Kawangware majority of the persons involved in substance abuse, s*x trade and other crimes are children aged below 17 years; They literally raise themselves because they have no one to reach them. Friends children center is committed to meeting the Spiritual, emotional, physical and educational needs of children at risk before the night mare of substance abuse, crime and s*x trade become a reality. Our approach at combating risk factors that lead children into crime , substance abuse and s*x trade is to help one child at a time, one family and in so doing one slum at a time.
2.3 Our partners
To help the organization , meet its objectives of rescuing the children at risk, the organization partners with individuals and communities in Kawangware.Our Centre and its partners, however, are equally committed to and will never discriminate against or withhold care from a child of a different religion, worldview, or persuasion. We trust God for more partners both locally and internationally, in-order to help us meet the needs of as many children at possible; to help us set up a child sponsorship for the needy children in our Centre.
3. OUR CHALLENGES
The organization while implementing it vision has met a number of challenges:
1. Financial challenges: Due to this we have not been able to meet our objectives. Many children after class 8 do not proceed to high school due to lack of school fees and this still puts them at risk. We are looking forward to address this by setting up a child sponsorship program. Most children do not eat lunch or depend on only one meal per day, this makes many children fail to turn up to school and go to the street. The centre does not meet its monthly budget like paying teachers , rent for the premises and purchase of teaching materials. Today the centre still has a rent and salary arrears that has accumulated over the years. We trusting God for prayer partners to help us in prayer and support.
2. Resource challenges : The centre has also faced various challenges with regard to resources. We have had a challenge with human resource, for example we have not been able to hire social workers and other experts due to limited resources. We also face challenges with equipment like desks, leaking class rooms, lack of play ground and play equipment which has affected our children to participate in extra curriculum activities. In terms of teaching materials the school has a big shortage of text books and other teaching materials.
3. Spiritual Challenges: Due to the large number of children we need churches to be partners as they spread the love of Christ to them. In addition, many children do not have Bibles and therefore Bible studies have not been efficient.
4. Fundraising challenges : We have very limited ways of raising funds for the program. Our prayer is that God will bring people to help us in fundraising in order that we may meet our objectives. OUR SUCCESS
In the last 10 years we have helped more than 500 children complete their basic education and reintegrated them into High school. Given the amount of resources we count this a great success. Our plan now is to raise more support and create more awareness, because in the next 5 years we plan to reach more than 500 children in Kawangware prevent them from ever being exploited in the substance abuse, crime and s*x trade. Our Centre is with all open arms willing to receive any stakeholder and partner in big or small ways to make a difference in the lives of these children.