Sasa?!

( w h a t s u p )

TUMAINI CHILDRENS DROP-IN CENTER

S p r i n g 2 0 1 2 I s s u e 8 : Q u a r t e r l y

Jambo! My name is Mike*. I am 14 years old. I am from Uganda but live with my grandmother in the slums of Eldoret. My parents passed on when I was young and I became an orphan. My grandmother is a good person, but she is too old and cannot afford the school fees and food for me. That is why I ran to the streets to look for food. I want to go back to school and become a teacher so that I can help my younger sister.

PhotoVoice
As part of an ongoing monitoring and evaluation project at Tumaini, it is important we seek the perspectives of the children who attend the center in order to make it a better place. One way we will do this is by implementing an exciting new project called Photovoice, a qualitative research method and evaluation tool that uses photography to illicit the perspectives of the children we serve, and empower them to use their voice for positive change in their lives. We spent a week in May searching for participants among the street children and youths in Eldoret. We have 32 participants and will spend the next month teaching photography principals and techniques along with facilitating practical sessions around Eldoret. Afterwards, participants will spend 6 weeks independently answering three research questions using disposable cameras. The questions are designed to understand what Tumaini is doing well and how it is doing it as well as why certain components of Tumaini are not helping and what we could do differently. Participants will share their photographs, experiences and ideas through focus group discussions. Lastly, each participant will select one of their photographs and create a masterpiece that will be showcased at an art exhibit at Tumaini. This project is user-focused with each individual choosing what pictures to share within their group, and what pictures to release to Tumaini for educational and fundraising purposes. In addition to providing valuable insight into Tumainis operations and street life in Eldoret, we hope this project will be an empowering experience for participants.

Find us on Facebook and Twitter @tumainicenter

I love getting the opportunity to learn how to use a camera! - 16 year old boy.

Women Empowerment Project

www.tumainicenter.org
Over the last two months Tumaini has been working to empower women whose children go the streets and whose children are potential street children. To date, we have approached women in two slums. One group of women has already undergone trainings on group savings, record keeping, and safety in the home/ community. In the coming months we will be starting with the second group. We have received positive feed back from the women and hope to expand the project to many more slums around Eldoret. The goals of this project are:

To empower mothers in income generating activities to reduce the influx of children to the street due to hunger and poverty To develop a children protection committee in the slums to oversee the welfare of the children; especially for the ones who have been taken back home. To train women on child protection and childrens rights to help reduce the child abuse cases. To prevent children from leaving home for the street.
The first group training

Nandi Road PO Box 1435-30100 | Eldoret, Kenya

Email us at tumainicenter@gmail.com

P a g e

Employment for Street Youths

Your Support
$1200 Can send a child to
primary boarding school for one year One of the main goals of the livelihoods department is to assist street youths to gain employment, earn a living, and abandon street life permanently. In Kenya, having an ID card is a legal requirement when attaining employment. In the course of the last few months, Tumaini has been working with the relevant government ministries to acquire ID cards for our street youths. To prove the youths are true Kenyan citizens they are required to present birth certificates, their parents ID cards, and a confirmation letter from the area chief where the youth was born. As you can imagine this process has been challenging. Most youths do not have these documents or are unable to get them as some of them are orphans. In order to overcome this barrier we have made special arrangements with the registrar where we provide a case history of every youth, a letter from a local chief representing all these youths as citizens, and finally an ID from one older guardian to be a parent to all the youths. So far, the process has been successful and we hope that the youths continue to receive their IDs and become contributing members of society.

$200 Can feed the children

coming to Tumaini for one week

$170 Can support our

operating functions for one week

$60 Can support the costs

of repatriating a child back home

$60 Can help a child to

start an IGA

Family Planning Update

The department of healthcare has recently engaged street mothers and older girls in accessing family planning (FP) services. The department initiated a working relationship with Uasin Gishu District Hospital department of FP/Maternal and Child Health in availing FP options to street mothers and older girls. At our first FP event, our healthcare and outreach departments were in charge of the mobilization and sensitization of the street mothers and older girls while Uasin Gishu District Hospital carried out the counseling and administering of depoprovera (depot) contraceptive injections. The long queues at the District Hospital and the long testing process discouraged many of the women and girls who didnt have the patience to wait. As a result few received depot and many did not return for the subsequent dose. Given this challenge we had to change our strategy. The health department began to administer depot at the center, as we realized most street mothers and older girls were more comfortable to be cared for at Tumaini. We observe strict protocols before administering depot. The process starts with counseling on the advantages and effects of depot, administering a pregnancy test , administering depot if they are not pregnant and finally counseling them on when to return for their follow up dose. We are proud to have 18 women and older girls enrolled in the program. If administering depot at Tumaini continues to prove successful, we hope to provide other long term FP methods through greater collaboration with our partner AMPATH.

$20 Can provide 20 children attending classes at Tumaini with exercise books, pens, and pencils

$20 Can maintain Tumainis outreach program for one week

MISSION STATEMENT Empower street children with the hope, knowledge, skills, opportunities and resources to find a healthy, permanent alternative to the street .

A Note from Eunice Kamaara, Board Member

I am happy for the opportunity to serve my local community as a member of the Board of Directors of Tumaini Childrens Drop in Centre. The Board is structured into three board liaison groups namely the Executive Liaison Group, the Program Liaison Group, and the Finance Liaison Group. These groups were created to provide effective support to the program manager, streamline decision making, and maximize our time at the monthly board meetings. I serve on the Executive Liaison Group within which I liaise with the Program Manager and other Executive Liaison members in providing guidance, support and decisions in the management of Tumainis Human Resources team. Specifically, I play a major role advising Tumaini on its relationships with the local community. Another area that I am closely involved in is Tumainis Education Program. We at Tumaini understand that street children are a unique population with different and special needs. For children who express a desire to return to school, we assess their readiness and educational level through our programs in order to successfully enroll them in Kenyas formal education system. Those who are not ready are put into our informal education classes at the center to prepare them for entering the formal education system. For the older youth, who need skills rather than education, we identify the kind of skills that are suitable for them depending on their personal preferences and abilities. Guidance and counseling is provided to all children by our staff. My engagement with Tumani is inspired by Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me Matthew 18: 5

BOARD OF DIRECTORS David Ayuku, PhD Paula Braitstein, PhD Elizabeth Chester, MSIH Rachel Gallagher Eunice Kamaara, PhD Tim Mercer, MD, MPH Robert Onywoki, Artisan Sonak Pastakia, PharmD, MPH, BCPS