I have made an addition to the 'my favourite charities' list. I met Jo Parsons who is a fellow school mum and has set up, then been running The Turning Point Trust with her husband for the past seven years.
When I spoke to her about the work she does I was really impressed. The Christian charity's aim is to work with homeless children living in the Kibera slum of Nairobi. They are mostly supported by donations from the UK.
They try to work closely with families, keeping them together in spite of difficult circumstances and trying to promote their quality of life through a feeding program for kids, working with local schools to transition street children back into education etc. also providing micro finance and advice so that adults can start small businesses and become self sufficient.
The Trust also own land which is now a farm in the Aberdares/Kinangop where they have relocated a group of nine very willing single mothers and their children, in order to gradually learn from the local community how to work the land. The idea is that once their skills are good enough, they can farm independently on Turning Point Trust land, then more mothers from Kibera can move out if they wish and begin the process.
There have been set backs. The election crisis and the current drought have not helped. The very well designed website explains all:
http://www.tptrust.org/In addition, our daughters' school, Kenton College, is currently raising money to build a school in Kibera. They have been helping the Kigulu Aids Orphans School for some years, but recently bought land (previously Kigulu was renting rooms), it has now been cleared and new construction has begun.
(if you like, see previous posts on my Kibera visit).
I think it's great that the older kids in our school get an opportunity visit Kibera and often, after their final exams, do physical work to improve conditions for kids at Kigulu. The feedback from the kids on this part of the 'Wider Horizons' program is always extremely positive. Last term Kigulu kids came to the school and spent the day doing art and crafts/playing football etc with our kids.
