Doing charity is one of the most fulfilling things which brings joy to us. There are many ways you can do charity. For some people, charity is a seasonal event based on financial planning. However, some people have dedicated their lives to doing charity daily.
Adopting children in foster care families is one of the most effective ways to end the institutionalization of children and end displaced orphaned and vulnerable children in sub-Saharan Africa. However, the model is good on paper but very difficult to implement due to less goodwill from people, corruption and extreme poverty levels.
Some international NGOs take advantage of children homes to seek funding but the funds never reach down to the children homes. It is the role of donors to reach directly to the children homes in the community and assess them so that they can directly support the children for example by directly paying their school fees without the intervention of any third parties.
Children's home founders and staff are good samaritans and the pillar of children homes. They dedicate their lives to rescue orphaned and vulnerable children who are not their own. Many of these children have little or no chances of a better tomorrow because of abandonment, extreme poverty and suffering.
Sometimes they do community visits when they are called to help those who need help.When you find time, check out a day in the life of our founder’s work routine in slums
Supporting any children who are not your own requires a big heart and goodwill. For some people, it is a spiritual calling.
I’ve spoken to many children's home founders and they always have similar reasons or life events that triggered them to live by doing charity for the rest of their lives.
For Margret, the founder of Smile community centre children’s home, it was more of a spiritual awakening after an event that changed her life occurred. While working on a tea farm in Nandi hills in the rift valley of Kenya, her back pain escalated to a serious spinal cord illness where she was bedridden for 7 years and doctors had predicted that she would never live longer than a year to walk again or survive.
She is a strong believer who refused to use a donated wheelchair. One day she decided to start sitting followed by walking. Every day, her road to recovery was a miracle. She believes it is God’s work to give her another chance of living and after recovery and many years later, her life is still on. Since then, she has always dedicated her life to charity and mostly serving orphaned and destitute children.
It is not always a walk in the park...
Lack of adequate resources and funding for school fees, food and medication adversely affect the running of children's homes. Many founders find themselves giving everything they have, talking to friends and family members to intervene to support these children.
Sometimes they are humiliated by people of influence and authority when they go to them to seek help for the poor.The same thing happened to Mother Teresa when a rich man spit on her face and started scolding her when she went to seek help for the poor. She responded to the rich man and said "Thanks for whatever you gave me, but what will you give to help my poor people?"
When there's no money for children’s daily needs and no support comes up, founders get stressed a lot.When Covid-19 started, many well-wishers left and there were no enough resources to take care of these children.
Children home founders and staff live on daily calls from the community, police and chief to go and rescue children. They live by doing community work so anything that is not related to the community work never resonates with them.
Currently Smile community centre children’s home has about 34 children who need to be rescued but there is not enough space and resources to rescue them for full-time care (Educational support, food, shelter, medication).
If you love doing charity, always remember children's homes need all the support to keep impacting children’s lives. You cannot support these children daily, but you can always chip into their needs in a small way that you can manage.
Show your support now through donation.