Habari !? (Tell me the news)

This blog-spot is now changed from travel updates to Children for Children’s future (CCF) updates. As most of you know we are providing the children from CCF with their monthly food and other basic supplies. We hope to update this blog-spot every two months or more often if anything new comes up. Instead of this blog being run by only one person, it will now be run by two people (Tom Kuperus and Katie Nord). We would like to dedicate this post to those who have so generously donated funds to provide the Children with food. As you can read in the “We Need Your Help” blog one month of very basic supplies costs approximately $400.00. The things that are typically purchased with this money will be outlined at the end of this post. While we were living at CCF we spent approximately $1000.00 per month. 

Mamma Vumy (cook) one day of Vegetables

 The present situation at CCF is not the perfect picture that a centre for street kids should be but these kids are definitely better off than they were before. Before volunteers came there 8 months ago the children were in a desperate state as there was no money to buy food, clothes, and other basic needs. Now the kids can be sure that they will have some food in their stomachs every month. Currently there is one person taking care of the 34 children. She is very dedicated and does the best she can. As you can imagine taking care of 34 children by yourself would be allot of work. Mamma Vumy is an amazing lady and she dedicates herself to the kids. At one point last year she was no longer receiving a salary, because of the corrupt management, she stated to the kids that she was going home to her village. The children shrugged and said “ok but if you leave than we leave, you are our mamma and we will not stay here without you”. So Mamma Vumy decided to stay even though she was receiving no salary.  She worked for an entire year without pay, went to town to ask people to donate food and other things for the kids. Now the situation is also better for Mamma Vumy as she is getting a small salary every month. We are each putting $25.00 towards her salary every month and each month we deposit $50.00 into her bank account, together with the $400.00 food money for the children.

Two other organizations are also helping provide these children with their basic needs. Fursa (fursa.ca) is paying most of the children’s school fees. And medical outreach (medoutreach.ca) is providing health care for the children. For more information on these organizations please go to the provided websites. So working together with these organizations you can be assured that the children’s basic needs are met. 

 In the above pictures you see Katie with (left to right) Godfrey Nurru and Kennedy. 

And Tom with (left to right) Amena and Kennedy.

We phone CCF about twice a month as of now and as of the last phone call all the children are doing well. They are a bit disappointed because now if their clothes get stolen or break or if anything else happens there is no one they can go to to get it sorted out. Mamma is very busy cooking and doing other stuff and we were usually the ones who took care of everything else. This is also the reason we spend less while we are not there. We tell the children that they have to wait until we return, or until another volunteer arrives before they get the situation sorted because we can't do much from North America. As of right now the plan is for Tom to go back next September.

 In these pictures you can see about one month of supplies

The Children say "Asante Sana" (Thank you so much)

It includes:

100 kg –Rice

100 kg- Beans

100 kg- Ground corn
100 kg- Flour

50 kg- sugar

1 carton of salt (2 months)

1 box of tea (2-3 months)

30 litres of cooking oil

2 boxes of washing soap (2 months)

Toothpaste

Scribblers (for school) 

Candles

Tooth brushes 

Pens

Not included in this picture is:

1 month of fire wood

Milk

Vegetables

Once again Katie and Tom would like to thank you very much for your continued support. Currently we will be able to stretch the money to last till the end of January so we will need to start fund-raising very soon. If you or anybody you know would like to support these children at  39 cents per day per child please click on the "We need your help" link or email us: Tom Kuperus thomas.kuperus@gmail.com or Katie Nord: nord0010@metnet.edu. 

once again thank you very much for your support. 

Stay tuned for news on the non-profit currently in the process of being started in an effort to continue helping the children!!