The Akhonya Trust Childrens Home at Ematundu

The Akhonya Trust Childrens Home has been established at Ematundu village approximately 25kms from Mumias.  The initiative is headed locally by Amos Mtsoto, a special needs school-teacher and community builder.

During his two year placement Richard spent a lot of time on outreach visits into small rural communities to raise awareness and carry out his work.  Each community had extensive needs, and Richard received a lot of requests for help—many of them operating on the “handout” policy requiring no input from the individual or community.  Many families and communities were in desperate situations due to disabilities and HIV/AIDS.

During one of these visits, Richard came into contact with a special needs teacher named Mr. Amos Mtsotso, who worked at Ematundu Primary School.  Amos showed Richard the efforts made by the community to support these children.  Despite having access to no money, they had a strong community spirit.  Committed to looking after each other, the community was determined to “better their situation” as best they could and support each other, and approached every challenge with smiles, a positive attitude, and the most generous hospitality to each and every visitor.

Amos showed Richard a piece of land attached to the school playing field destined for a home for disabled children.  Although this seemed like an impossible dream, Richard helped the community mark out the building footprint, and set it the challenge of digging some foundations and contacting an architect to draw up some plans.  Due to the location of Ematundu and the poverty of the local community, Richard doubted that this community would be able to rise to the challenge.  However, Amos’ infectious positive attitude and absolute belief in the community and the good that this building would provide made Richard promise that if they managed to take the initial steps he would somehow find a way to match them and try and locate some funding.  Richard recognized that Amos was a very engaging and inspiring person, and that this proposal would be different from many others.

Richard set Amos the challenge of completing a few tasks before his next visit.  Some weeks later, Richard returned to find that full foundations had been dug, 1,000 bricks had been baked, and the community had, by hand, chopped down some of their own trees and were sawing them into planks of wood to begin construction.  Not only had Amos successfully carried out all of the tasks, but it was clear that the whole community was behind him and had got involved.  Richard once again put the word out at home in Newcastle and friends and family rose to the challenge holding fundraising events.  One of these included a close friend raising a huge amount of the money required by riding Coast to Coast by bike in one day.

Richard and Amos’ friendship developed and with a huge amount of project management support from Richard, the community managed to build a brick building.  The facility had a tin roof, windows, doors, and bunk beds, and became home to 32 children with disabilities to allow them to access the nearby school.  This building is named “The Unclemac Small Home”.  Before the dormitory was built, the children’s families were unable to transport them to and from school on a daily basis. 

The community-led project has grown since the first building was completed.  The Trust purchased a piece of land adjacent to the school land where the Unclemac home is located and set out plans to build a community to house some of the many HIV/AIDS orphans in this area.  The Akhonya Trust Childrens Home now has two dormitories, housing 130 children, to add to the original one at the school which is housing 25 disabled children.   The boys’ dormitory is named the Squiggle small home and the girls dormitory is called the Biorad small home.  The names were chosen by major funders but are testimonials to each and every person who donated funds. Friends and family of the trust sponsor these children individually on an ongoing basis.

The Trust has dug a well to provide clean drinking water to the community who now do not have to make the twice-daily 8km round trip for water.   It has also provided resources to provide the community with some animals, and has purchased a one-acre plot of land nearby that is planted with food such as maize, groundnuts, beans, sukuma wiki (kale), as well as napier grass to feed the cows.  This not only provides part of the childrens’ dietary needs but also provides the children with horticultural skills they would normally have learnt in a home environment on the “shamba”.

Construction is currently underway for a 13,000 sq.ft. Resource Centre with a workshop where children can learn marketable skills such as carpentry, metalwork, and knitting, in order to build capacity in this fledging rural community.

Ematundu Resource Centre

A Resource Centre is currently under construction.  This 13,000 sq. ft. Centre will be the latest addition to the orphanage complex.  Facilities will include a library, communal eating area, and workshop, as well as a football pitch and volleyball area.  The communal dining area will provide a space to bring the children together at meal times and opportunities for building social skills and community-building.  The library will provide a secure space where the children can study.  The workshop will serve as a place to teach marketable skills such as carpentry, metalwork, and knitting that will enable orphans to learn crafts and trades to support themselves in the future. 

Primarily, the Centre will provide a vital communal space for the orphans.  It will generate additional benefits that spill-over to the broader community in several seemingly small, but very important ways.  First, the Centre will provide teaching and skill-sharing jobs for members of the community.  Second, the capital costs of building will go directly into the community in the form of building materials and labour.  Local trades-people will hand-make the bricks, and frames for the doors and windows from timber that has to be hand-cut.  This investment will therefore generate ‘multiplier effects’ throughout the community.

By also providing a space for community education, the Resource Centre will serve thousands of people a year in the broader environment.  In particular, the Centre will also provide a space for organisations like SAIPEH (Support Activities in Poverty Eradication and Health) to deliver their educational messages when they visit this community. The Centre will also be used to educate the surrounding community about basic nutrition and midwifery, and to reduce the cultural stigmas that are attached both to HIV/AIDS and disabilities. 

Goals of The Akhonya Trust Childrens Home

The short-term goal of The Akhonya Trust Childrens Home is to complete the construction of the site with the Resource Centre, and surrounding facilities that will include a football field and playground equipment.  Once this has been completed, the focus will be on nurturing the children in the orphanages.  Every attempt is made by the Trust to encourage the placement of those children orphaned by HIV/AIDS with extended family members. However, this is not always possible.  Street children as young as four years old have been brought to the orphanage. 

The Akhonya Trust Childrens Home provides a safe and nurturing environment for children who are unable to be placed with local families to reach their individual potential.  Plans are underway to create individualized education programmes (IEPs) for each child to create sustainable futures for them.  Pathways include various combinations of formal education and training in marketable skills.

The relationship between child and sponsor will be developed as fully as possible and the entire focus of the project will be on creating the most supportive environment and allowing the children to develop their own sustainable futures.  Only once a child has completed their education and has voluntarily left the orphanage to make their own way in life, will their place be filled by another child.  This ensures that the resources will not be stretched any more than is required and means every child will have every opportunity they deserve to allow them to succeed in life.

The sponsor a child scheme

Sponsorship is envisaged as a long-term commitment for the child’s educational term enabling close ties between the sponsor and each individual child.  The child and their sponsor are encouraged to communicate with each other by letters and hopefully develop a bond that provides some emotional support for the child. 

Two dormitories are home to 130 children orphaned by AIDS, with a third community housing 25 disabled children.  Orphans are sponsored by donors at an annual cost of approximately £100 per child that covers school fees, school uniforms, food and a housemother who cooks and takes care of the children.  Joining the projects in this manner enables orphans to access housing and education in a way that reinforces the impact of these vital resources and improves their chances of leading independent lives, and possibly accessing higher education in the future. 

Child sponsorship is a long-term commitment that extends far beyond the act of donating money.  The goal is to provide children with extended, albeit long-distance, family, on a long-term basis.  Correspondence and a long-term interest in the child’s progress and well-being is strongly encouraged.

For further information, please contact us.