My Volunteer Experience at Future Hope and Baby Center (September- December 2011)

Background

Future Hope and Baby Centre was started on February 5th, 2006. Jane, the Director of the home, liked to visit Children's Garden, an orphanage within the District where she worked as a teacher. The director of the home was a friend who was struggling to raise abandoned children.

On the material day, an officer visited the orphanage to seek help with two abandoned children in need of shelter. Jane accompanied the director to the nearby slum where the little girls were left alone. The younger baby 1 1/2 years old was too young for the orphanage. They took the 4 year old girl. Jane was saddened by the fact that the younger baby was remaining alone in the one roomed house without any relative to take care of her.

 After much discussion, Jane offered to take care of Hope, as the baby was later called, on behalf of the orphanage and until the mother was found. She never turned up. The children's officer visited Jane and her family and was happy with the way Hope was being taken care of.

With time, Jane began receiving more abandoned babies in her little flat. In February 2007, Jane had received 7 young babies. There was no room. Babies slept on her dining table in their weaved baskets. A friend, Ann Bergerlind, from Sweden, helped Jane get a bigger home and rent for two months and thus, the Baby Centre was born. To date, the centre is home to more than 20 children who live with Jane and her family in a rented 5 bedroom house.

Jane has employed workers. Each one of them has a specific duty. One cooks food, another washes clothe, another takes care of the smallest babies, one looks after the older children and one who is a year old.  Another one looks after a cow that gives milk to the centre. She also cleans the compound and the eating area. There is one who is in charge of all the workers and who co-ordinates stores and supplies.

The centre receives no funding from the government but relies totally on the donations; which go to the children's upkeep, food, rent, medical supplies, wages and transport.

Feelings

 I am very disappointed by the mothers to these children because of abandoning them after nine months of carrying them in their womb. Their actions seem to give Jane the satisfaction of nurturing them and see them smile every day. It is something she loves to do. It is unfortunate that other women would do anything to have a child when others find the same child as a nuisance.

Every child has a sad and emotional story of how their journey to be with Jane began. Allan Njenga is baby number 2. In April 2006, Jane's sister informed her there was a baby in her neighborhood that had problems. His mother was mentally ill and was paralyzed on her right hand and right leg. She had no shelter. When she got very tired, she hid Allan in bushes and left him behind. 

Brian was not abandoned, his father worked as a casual laborer where Jane taught, at two weeks old, his parents started fighting, and his mother refused to breast feed him at such times. It got so bad, the mother packed and left.  His father pleaded with Jane to help him out and thus Brian was rescued and joined at the centre at 7 weeks. He was very ill. Diana was brought to the centre from Children's Garden orphanage. Like Hope, she was too young for them. She was a very sick little girl. She suffered from Marasmus, which is due to lack of food and mostly protein. With her extended stomach, big head and wasted body, Diana could not sit by herself at one year.

Angel was born out of rape. Her mother gave birth at fifteen.  Since then Angel's mother and her daughter were in danger of revenge by the rapist's family. Somehow the children's officer knew and called Jane to rescue the baby. Ian was four months when he joined the Baby Centre on 7th February 2007. Ian's mother is or was a sex worker then so she fed him on sleeping pills and alcohol to allow him to sleep so as she works. A neighbor reported the matter to the children's officer and Ian was rescued.

To be abandoned after being born, not more than 12 hours outside the mother's womb is incomprehensible. Sam's mother could have been ill or something very tragic had happened to her but Jane raised Sam from then on. Eric joined the home in June 2007 at 9 months. His mother had abandoned him in a church compound at night. She went on a drinking spree up to the wee hours of the morning. Tony joined in May 2007. His parents had rented a house in a small town called Riruta. No one knows what happened, but both parents disappeared and left Tony alone in the house. They neighbors heard him cry and saved him.

Those are some of the very sad stories from a number of kids. They are 22 in number I am not able to highlight all but the above stories are the saddest. I believe with more women like Jane and the very many volunteers such destitute children will still find a happy life. Seven are in school, seven others attend home schooling and the very five tiny babies are looked after at the home.

The director has really tried to give these children a comfortable life. A home that would give many other children hope for the future and brighter life as they get comfort to a luxurious home that they might have never come close too, if they were never rescued.

Learned Experiences/ Gained Knowledge

I have always said that patience is the only virtue that has lost its way to my heart. Future Hope Baby Centre was my inspiration as far as patience is concerned. I say this because I was working with people I just met there. Feeding the babies, waiting for the kids to grab a song after 3 days was amazing. I did not outgrow the kids, but  loved them a number of them especially Neema got attached to me so much that she cried every time I waved good bye.

I did not like feeding babies, the reason being I don’t want to get all dirty and struggle with a crying baby but I would take them for a walk anytime. The first time I tried so hard to give all excuses not to feed baby Purity after I had taken her for a walk in the sun and took so long. Feeding her was my punishment, I could not fight five other girls working there so, I fed her. To my surprise it was easier than expected, since then I would ask to feed a baby at lunchtime.

The best part of my experience is time management. I did not know I could afford nine hours of a week for leisure. These hours of a week spent at the baby center was a mirror of how much time I had wasted before.

Activities

My duties were to; feed the babies, clean the dishes, mop the stair cases and living room, baby seat, and help in hanging the laundry to dry. I also helped the teacher in prepairing for her next classes, teach the kids music. I also worked hard in encouraging the employees to be taking the little babies out in the sun for a walk and by the time I left, that was a routine and I loved every minute of that.

Incidences

A week after I had finished my community service I went back to collect my supervision letter. As I went to meet Jane, the director who was in the baby’s room, I meet Sifa, seated. Sifa was in therapy long before I worked there, and he could not seat by himself for over a year and a half. This hit me like an amazing miracle. As if that was not enough, I go the boys’ room to say hi and I meet Joshua walking all over the places. The last time I checked he could not walk without help. He now smiles at me, he never liked my face before. AMEN to that.

ACADEMIC ANALYSIS

VISSION 2030

Children's Rights and the new Constitution in Kenya

On 27 August 2010, Kenya promulgated into law a new Constitution which was overwhelmingly supported at the national referendum on the 4^th of the same month. Besides ushering in a new political and democratic dispensation, the new Constitution lays down a normative and structural framework for the protection of human rights in Kenya.

  The new Constitution has a comprehensive Bill of Rights which sets out both the general rights extending to citizens in general and those of specific groups including children, the youth and persons with disabilities. 

This article creates immediate obligations upon the State to fulfill socio-economic rights of children. In effect, the government is henceforth bound to deliver healthcare, education, nutrition and shelter to all children irrespective of budgetary implications. 

On parents’ duty to support their children, the Constitution now stipulates that both the father and the mother, whether married to one another or not, have an equal responsibility to provide for their child.