Day Sixteen - Child Sponsorship

July 27, 2012 (Sam)

      We finally started work!

      We sat down with Jane the other day and she outlined a little more specifically what we’re going to be doing while we are here. She has a vision to one day replicate what they have here at the Beacon of Hope Centre in Ongata Rongai in a dozen different locations around Machakos and Kajiado counties. They are also in the process of building a primary and secondary school on Beacon’s current campus. They are hoping to have five times as many children at the academy next year as they do this. Beacon insists on a 50/50 policy: they currently have 140 children in the academy (pre-K and Kindergarten), and they require that 50% of them can afford to pay their own school fees. They insist that the other 50% can not. Beacon does this because if they don’t allow the children who can’t afford school to attend there, then they simply won’t go at all. Many of these children are orphans, and many others are simply far too poor to be able to count on their parents to pay their fees. Child sponsorship would allow donors from anywhere in the world to support a child as they go through school. School fees are very inexpensive here, but because of the number of “vulnerable” children that Beacon accepts into their academy, they are left with far too many school fees to be able to shoulder themselves.

      So having a smoothly functioning child sponsorship program is going to be essential. At this point, there isn’t much of a program in existence. Jane is counting on Christina to develop and implement such a program. Jane is taking this project very seriously. Which is why she has decided to go so far as to appoint Christina a personal assistant: me. That’s right. Construction is out the window. Jane wants me running support for Christina while she tackles the child sponsorship beast. She also asked me to be involved in the Youth Resource Center here at Beacon, playing sort of a mentoring role to the youth, and assisting the staff in any way I can.

      We are excited about these projects. In many ways because of the potential they hold to change lives. But we all know that programs don’t change lives; people change lives. Which is why we are excited about the relationships that will develop in the process of these programs being developed. Which is why we’re also excited to continue to ask for your love and support as we move forward with this task. A child sponsorship program is no good if there are no sponsors ensuring that these kids can stay in school. Please continue to be open to pouring out compassion on the children of Kenya. There are going to be great opportunities opening in the near future for everyone to get more personally involved in these children’s lives. We’ll keep you posted!