Your help in Mathare, the Nairobi slum

Mathare is one of the largest slums in Nairobi. Three square kilometers, not far from the center of the Kenyan capital, completely covered with tin shacks where an estimated five hundred thousand people live. There is no water or electricity and people's living conditions are often dramatic: children live on the street, there is a lot of violence, drugs, crime, poverty and prostitution.

Most of the children and young people connected the distance support of the Kenyan socio-educational project’s live here. It is precisely in this slum that a year and a half ago "A job for the young mothers of Mathare" was begun. This project is dedicated to training a group of teenage mothers, training we do together with our contact people in the area, Joab Omoto and Sister Marilena Botta, whom we were lucky enough to interview during a recent episode of our radio program “Women of impact”.

As Sister Marilena told us, every drop counts and Valter Baldaccini also realized this when he went to Mathare during one of his trips. For this reason, together with Sister Marilena every year we identify some particularly dramatic situations which, thanks to the support of our donors, we try to support.

Who we have we helped thanks to your support?

This year we have been able to support:

• Mumo and Kimeu, two brothers, aged 3 and 5 abandoned by their mother and left with their alcoholic father. The sisters met because they wandered all day on the road. The sisters began to take care of them with a nice daily shower and a hearty meal and tried to involve their father too, who in the end was convinced to return to live in the countryside with his children. Now we know they are in good hands because their grandparents look after them;
• Two families who lost everything they had during a fire that broke out in June. One family lost a young pregnant daughter and both parents died in the other.
• Mark, a brain-damaged boy from birth. Mark has a family that loves him very much and he is a peaceful boy even though he suffers a lot and he spends long periods with one or both of his legs in casts. He needs physical therapy, but he has very fragile bones: with just a little pressure they break. When he is free from the casts he attends a special school where he can relate to his peers, improve his movement and pronunciation.

Dramatic stories but also hopeful stories, possible only thanks to you. To continue supporting the projects in Mathare donate now.