Fredag i uge syv fik vi igen lov at prøve vores evner af inden for borgerjournalistik. Vi besøgte børnehjemmet Baraka og interviewede nogle af børnene der. Vi gennemførte vores interviews i grupper, og skrev så artiklerne individuelt.
From street child to high school student
 |
| The two dorms and the dining hall of Baraka |
To learn
about the life of orphan children in Kenya we set out to visit Baraka orphanage that is located in the bush a
few kilometers outside Nanyuki in the Central Highlands of Kenya. Its main
purpose is to help children from homes of few ressources to get an education.
The orphanage houses 28 children living there and additional 10 street children who
visit on a reguar basis. Baraka consists of four seperate small buildings; the
girls’ dorm, the boys’ dorm, the dining hall and the kitchen.
We meet the 19
years old Moses Kimathi outside the boys’ dorm on a sunny Friday noon. As
we follow him into the shadow, Moses begins telling us about his childhood.
In his early
childhood, Moses lived with his mother, father and five siblings in Nanyuki. The
father left the family when Moses was only three years old, and no one ever heard
anything from him again before his death. Some years later the mother became
suicidal and ran away leaving the children of the family to take care of
themselves. Moses then moved in with his older brother who was now married. The
brother was very rough against Moses, and one time he hit Moses so hard that
his arm broke. Moses ran away to join his older sister, also married, who was
running a small hotel. However, the sister, taking care of her own new family,
did not have the ressources to take care of Moses.
Now left
completely alone, Moses went to live on the streets of Nanyuki. His number one
priority every day was to get something to eat. He would go to hotels and ask for
leftovers. In the day hours he went to the village center to kill time by
watching movies. At ten o’clock he would go the city market and sleep
underneath the stall tables. Living on the streets he met a young boy at his own
age with whom he began to evolve a friendship. The two boys started providing
for each other by sharing their food and money. One day, like many other street
children in Kenya, they began sniffing glue. But while Moses stopped sniffing
shortly after, his friend got more and more addicted. Moses left him.
 |
| Moses Kimathi |
Let down once
again, Moses finaly got some real help. In the streets of Nanyuki he met pastor
John of a nearby church. After being introduced to Baraka by the pastor, Moses
walked on his bare feet all the way to Baraka that was then situated 25
kilometers from Nanyuki.
The first few
weeks after arriving at Baraka, Moses “changed his life into a christian life”,
as he says. “I was disciplined, and I was good to people. That is why they were
good to me”. At Baraka he got a new “family” with one of the women working there
as his “mother” whom he could always go to when facing a problem. He and some
of the other children would be “siblings” that would always take extra care of
each other.
While staying
at Baraka, Moses went from fifth grade to eighth grade in primary school. Today
he is in form four at a boarding school located at the other side of the nearby
mountain, Mount Kenya. Now he only stays at Baraka during the holidays. Moses
studies Chemistry, Math, Physics, History, English and Swahili. He finds these classes
quite difficult but still he likes school because he is good at sports and games, which is practised a lot at the boarding school. Moses’ future
dream is to be an engineer, but possibly his grades will not allow him to study
engineering. Therefore he would like to take some cooking classes so that he
will be able to get a job in a catering business.
The story of
Moses tells us how hard the life of a kenyan street child can be. Moses’
childhood was filled with violence, addiction and neglect. But his story also
tells us that you can go through it all to experience better times of love and
care and to get an education.
