the last bit

Which brings us to the last part of our trip which was spent volunteering with the Kenya Children's Home in Nairobi. Rather than do a day by day account of our time in the Children's Home we thought we'd give an overview of our time there and our impressions.

The Kenya Children's Home is an orphanage which houses 175 children who have been orphaned, abandoned or left destitute. The Home has recently had an influx of new children who have been displaced due to the post election violence in Nairobi. The children are housed in 9 family units, with each house providing shelter for up to 12-16 children. These children are cared for by a dedicated house mother and an auntie in each unit. The children are of mixed ages and sexes, with all siblings living together, recreating a family-oriented environment. Up until the age of two the babies live in a nursery where they are cared for by a team of women.

We were fortunate enough to be able to stay in a friend's flat which was walking distance from the Home. From there we would walk up each morning to help out with running kid's clubs which were activity sessions for the children while they were on school holidays. The kids were aged from 2 - 15 years and we would visit all the individual homes to round up the children to come out and play. While we were there we also helped out with homework clubs, maintenance on the property and looking after the children in the nursery.

Woz helped out quite a bit with maintenance while he was there. A lot of the signage for the home was faded and so Woz revamped them all by hand. One sign proved to be a little difficult though as it was very high up and Woz really needed scaffolding to do it. In Africa though, anything goes, so Woz drove one of the school buses up to the wall and painted from there. There's really no need to explain why he's known as MacGyver.