Toto is Swahili for "Baby" and Simba means "Lion". However, the project is not about saving baby lions in Kenya. The project title draws an analogy between the plight of the small lion cub in the film "The Lion King" and the children and young people of the Meru district of Kenya. The trust was set up to provide financial aid to the Wesley Empowerment Centre (WEC) in the village of Baraimu to help relieve the poverty and raise the education levels by helping very poor and/or orphaned children aged 4 and 5 years back to school.

 

Poverty Prevails

Baraimu village in Mbeu location of Meru District is an extremely poor area on the slopes of Mt. Kenya. It is a semi-arid area inhabited by landless ethnic groups from all over Kenya. For all their food and cash, families rely on small land parcels. As a result, most children have little to eat and most barely make it through the primary school level.

The Next Phase

The next phase of the project addresses the needs of the older siblings and parents by financing the building of a Multi-purpose Community Centre. This building will contain 2 classrooms, a storeroom and one guest room. The Centre will be used for training the villagers in carpentry, African craft and tailoring. These trades will help them gain some meaningful employment, formal and informal and in effect assist the children.

Costs

The project started officially in January 2004 with a seed donation from Martin Way Methodist Church. Apart from the £10,000 building and setting up costs, it is estimated that it will cost approx £7,500 to run the project each year.