Overview

• Address: Wesley Empowerment Centre, Baraimu MCK, Kimirii Circuit, Miathene Synod (District), P.O Box 1073,
• Meru Location: Mbeu Location 1km from Kagaene Township, Tigania West, Meru North, Eastern Province, Kenya, East Africa.
• Status: 30 Children,
• Teacher's Name: Esther Amatu,
• Social Worker: Mr Baariu
• Management Officials:
• • Chairperson: Hilda Maitha Ireri,
  • Secretary: Frasia Karungari,
  • Treasurer: Pius Mutea

Rationale

At the heart of Kenya is the second highest mountain in Africa known as Mt. Kenya. At the slopes of this mountain is a town known as Meru. It is inhabited by a Bantu group of people most of whom are peasant farmers. Most of the Meruland is fertile with many large coffee and tea plantations. Yet unknown to most people, even in Kenya itself is an area known as Mbeu. This place of which is semi-arid has no cash crop and people depend on maize and beans for existence. Most families here own less than an acre of land which produces around five bags (450kg) of maize and half of beans (50kg) per annum. An average family of six depends on such a piece of land for all their food and cash. This is an equivalent of Kenya Shillings five thousand (£50).

Extreme Poverty

We are talking of extreme poverty in a land believed to be the most fertile. As a result, most children have little to eat and most barely make it through the primary school level. Worse still was during the previous government when there were extra levies in schools. At least with the new governments policy of free primary education the situation has improved. Yet without food, children find it hard to last an entire day at school. Others go to school off and on as they have to work as casuals on farms of the rich in order to earn money for the family.

Malaria and HIV/AIDS

Added to such extreme poverty is the Malaria phenomenon. Due to some swampy water catchment areas there are many breeding grounds for mosquitoes. Indeed what is Mbeu now was a land that many people who moved to Meru a millennium ago would not touch due to this deadly disease. Some from the more fertile areas of Meru still keep off from this area in fear of being infected with Malaria. As a result many have died leaving very young impoverished families with one parent, grandparent or relatives. The result has been that this young kids dropping out of school to fed for themselves and their families. The deadly HIV/AIDS scourge has not spared Mbeu! The area has seen some deaths resulting from this disease again adding to the list of orphans. The mortality has increased especially since those catching the AIDS virus are already weakened by Malaria and poor diets.

Project Born - Wesley Empowerment Centre

Confronted by so many extremely poorly fed kids, a long list of orphans and many school dropouts, the members of Baraimu Methodist Church felt they had to do something. The option was to let the village be swallowed up in this monster as only a handful of its children made it to high school while others had very little or no literary skills to help them make anything out of life.

Here was the birth of MCK Baraimu Wesley Empowerment Centre. It is a project aimed at feeding and helping the young children achieve the minimum of primary school education. It is (and will continue to) recruiting children ages 4-5 and puts them on the feeding and teaching programme. Then it releases them to the adjacent primary schools and invites them for lunch. For most of these children this lunch is the only worthy meal they may hope to have for a day.

Through a generous seed donation from Martin Way Methodist Church the centre opened its doors at the beginning of this year with about 30 children. Through this project children are fed, educated and made to fall in love with school again. They are happy and playful and their smiles have come back to them. For once they can be children in a safe environment and not work a whole day in scorching sun that saps childhood from their weak bones. The challenge is to keep them there.

Budget

It costs only KSh 50 to keep the child there for one day. We currently have 30 children from the poorest of the poor. There are two people taking care of them, one who doubles up as a teacher and caretaker and the other one as the social work person who ensures they are safe back home. An account has been opened at Kenya co-operative bank.

Item	Cost p/yr KSh
Salaries	100,000
Teaching Materials	50,000
Food	70,000
Maintenance	20,000
Adminstration	8,000
Miscellaneous	2,000
Total	250,000
Equivalent to	£2,500

How about the Parents - Multi-purpose Empowerment Centre

If all we do is help the children the cycle of poverty will not be broken. The aim is to transform the entire village so that they can all earn a living and break the cycle of dependency. Thus the idea of a multi-purpose Empowerment Centre where the villagers can be trained on various trades viz, masonary, carpentry, tie and dye, tailoring, art craft, farming etc. The cost of this will be around £10,000 (£1,000 for buying a plot, £4,000 for putting up basic structures, £1,800 for furnishing and £3,000 for getting started). A group of people from Wimbledon Circuit will be visiting there in August 2005 to help in building work and to establish a relationship.

What you can do?

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. As a church or a group you could adopt this as your overseas project. As an individual you could Gift Aid through or just write a cheque to "MCW Rafiki Trust". As a family you could be paired with a family in that village for mutual partnership. As a school you could adopt the school department and identify with it. Plans to register a charity over here by the name Help Baby Simba Kenya Project are at advanced stage and you will be advised once that is achieved. Please pray with us.