Thika - Wednesday to Friday, June 1 to June 3rd

Today, we left Nairobi and started our journey through other parts of Kenya.  We drove to Thika.  

One of the many things I did NOT know about Kenya is how high in elevation much of it is.  Thika is 1,631 meters or 5,351 feet high (Nairobi is 1,795 meters or 5,889 feet high).

In any case we first visited Macheo Children Center (Macheo in Swahili means "New Dawn".  Many organization are calling these Children Centers because calling the kids "Orphans" has such a bad stigma attached to it.

Each of these meetings and visits are too "businesses" that have and are still receiving micro-loans or  grants from GNU Foundation. 

Macheo has children homes with 6 to 8 kids in each home.  They all have house mothers that live in the homes with them and the kids, besides going to the school at Macheo, learn how to cook, clean and take care of themselves.

From here we drove to The Children of Strength - Watoto Wenye Nguvu International Orphan Cares.   We met with Elizabeth Gitau the Founder, she is quite a women!  This is another outstanding example, like Macheo, of what can be done to help orphans and vulnerable kids.

Next on to the Community of Hope Care Center.  This place is truly the place where babes have been abandoned, children who have been neglected and abused.  Here their main aim is to rescue, restore hope, empower and transform the lives of these kids.  Many of them are HIV positive. 

Our last of four visits today was to DISC Initiative (Donyo Integrated Sports Center).  

Quite a long and emotional day, but it sure feels good knowing that we are both helping financially and physically to help, mostly children and young adults that need the support the most.

We are spending the next 3 nights at the Kopling Vocational Training Center with Seminar and Conference Facilities.  This is a very basic place to sleep, eat and hold a seminar. It is however the best available in Thika, which is the most central place to have the organizations I listed above,  Furaha, from the Haruma slum in Nairobi and Rays of Hope of Meru, Kenya to meet for a two day seminar.

My single bed with Beth's bed in the foreground and our mosquito netting.

This is a statue of Adolph Kolping who started this Vocational Center

This photo was taken next to the DISC location in Donyo, after our meeting.  I just liked it!

Here the seminar facilitator Tonee Ndungu (BTW I pasted a link to Tonee's "Ted Talk" he was named the Entreneuper of the Year for Kenya a few years ago)

One of the many ways Tonee worked the seminar was to present problems that the groups needed to work together to solve.  Try this one....if you have the answer please respond to me on this blog by posting a message.  You have two plastic bottles one is 5 liters the other is 3 liters and you want EXACTLY 4 liters of water how do you do it?