Merry, Merry Christmas from your family in Kenya!! The festive season is here and we thank God for His protection and the ability to celebrate the time with those we love.
As usual, we have been busy running around this season to be able to reach out to vulnerable girls within out community. We are still having more referrals to the centre, and we are so happy to be able to be doing this work in Meru.
First off, I would like to share with you that we have officially helped our 50th girl in our rescue programme!!! We are so proud to be able to help these girls, whether it is through the community support programme, as well as girls who have been assisted with shelter and protection.
Three more girls have been rescued since our last update, and we are happy to be able to help them in the centre. The first pair is again a mother and daughter, though in this case, the daughter was not abused. The mother was referred to our centre through an organization named International Justice Mission. She was under their care after they found out about her case, which was pregnancy out of rape. They were assisting her in Nairobi, but felt that the care she was receiving at the centre was not adequate, as mom and baby both had many health concerns. A representative from IJM knew about the centre, and its reputation for restoring health to girls who had been abused, and so she approached the centre to provide shelter for the mother and baby. As we are not a home where they can stay indefinitely, so they identified another home in Nairobi to care for the girl, but found that the intake would not be until March 2008, so they will be staying with us until then, so we can assist them with their health and nutritional status.
Our 50th case is a girl from the Meru North community who was raped by her father, after his wife left their family home. She reported the case to the local chief, but she reports that she was not assisted, as the chief is friends to the father. She has been staying with a family in the community, but decided that she wanted to seek justice. She was referred to us from the Meru police station where she filed a case against the man. We will be assisting her to seek justice, as well as providing her with shelter until we can find the family who has been supporting her and assess their ability to care for her.
We have to say, the After Care weekend was one of our greatest successes!! It was such a wonderful Christmas treat for the girls, and they all had so much fun. In fact, most of them wanted to stay for the whole holiday season!! We took the girls to out for a day in Nanyuki, which is a neighboring town, and boy did we have fun with them!! We went to a lodge, where they have a play area for the girls to play on, as well as boats, swings, and even horse riding! The girls spent the day playing, and they reported that the only hard part of the day was deciding if they wanted to ride the horses, go for a boat trip, or swing on the merry go round!! We took them out for a lunch afterwards, and found out that it is a myth that little girls eat little food – the staff had never seen chips and sausage disappear at such a fast rate! On our ride to and from Nanyuki, the girls kept us smiling with the stories they shared, the songs they sang and the noise of 30 giggling girls on a bus!
We celebrated our Christmas season with singing carols and decorating our Christmas tree at the centre. The girls that are living here all helped, and we made our home look so much more warm and welcoming for the season. Our tree was adorned with decorations made by the girls, sweets strung on string, cotton for snow, and though we did not have an angel for the top of the tree, we did have Clifford the Big Red Dog at the top of our tree!! The girls who stayed at the centre also were given gifts for the holidays – clothes, slips, socks, and more, which they all appreciated so much.
All of your girls wanted to share a very warm greeting over the holiday. They truly love you so much, Mum, and we do as well. So many girls reported that they could not wait to come ‘home’ again, and it warms our hearts to hear that they think of your centre as their home. We all have enjoyed our holiday season so much, and we hope that you have as well. We pray for you and know that God will bless you in this New Year with protection, love and prosperity. Thank you again, and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
MERCY CHIDI
