Claire Chambers Sky Dive
Donation protected
Support one of our volunteers Clair Chambers who will do a skydive to raise needed funds to supply a hot water system to the rehab center for street boys in Mukuru slums, Nairobi. Claire is going to take to the skies on the 17th of October at the Irish Parachute Club in Edenderry.
I made a promise to the boys in the Rehab center when in Nairobi last year that I would do a skydive to raise money for hot water for their showers. I want to make this jump. I want to five these wonderful boys the belief that sometimes the impossible is possible. For them, a geriatric old woman jumping out of an aircraft to help them is beyond the best possible way for me to celebrate my 80th Birthday.
More than ever hygiene is important. Than money raised is to improve facilities for the street boys in Mukuru by harnessing Kenya's abundant sun to provide hot water.
Amazing bright boys, age 9-16, who have been living off their wits, foraging in bins for food, begging and stealing, sleeping where they could, in doorways, under bridges, and shortening the day by getting high on sniffing glue, petro, or drugs. After 2-3 years for whatever reason on the streets, realizing this is not the way they want to live their lives.
The Mukuru Promotion Centre Rehab unit gives them a chance. A song composed by one of the boys “Nimechange Life Yangu” meaning ‘I have changed my life’ is popular with the others. They know they are lucky, a roof over their heads, and are catching up on their education and develop their talents. Acting out skits is also popular. They also are learning other life skills- growing vegetables, beadwork, and carpentry. One of the projects is making cooking sticks for one of their local sponsors - a target of two hundred pieces each. Sadly another was to make coffins, little did they know that one would be used by one of last year’s graduates who was killed by a lynch mob.
All the money raised by the skydive will be spent well, as we have control of the purse strings. By ‘we’ I mean the Big 5, the Kenyan nickname for 5 freelance women volunteers, unattached to any charitable NGO. I am very much the rookie only having joined the group 3 years ago. The others have been going out for many years. We have all been caught by Sister Mary Killeen’s dynamism. She has worked in the Mukuru slums for over 30 years raising the living standards and helping at every crisis. She has shown us how small things and personal support has helped.
Going out regularly twice a year means we get to know the individual boys and basically, they are our extended families. We act as grandmothers, chiding the boys when needed but also encouraging them. Small things happen when we are around, new shoes, chips for dinner, a television, blankets. Sadly we cannot visit them for the foreseeable future but we continue to support them in every way we can.
As we are made aware of their needs, we have got more ambitious, new skills and an educational building called Hekima House, a library where the older boys can study, recreational facilities, basic gardening equipment helping them to produce their own vegetables and hopefully shortly thanks to your generosity hot water!
I made a promise to the boys in the Rehab center when in Nairobi last year that I would do a skydive to raise money for hot water for their showers. I want to make this jump. I want to five these wonderful boys the belief that sometimes the impossible is possible. For them, a geriatric old woman jumping out of an aircraft to help them is beyond the best possible way for me to celebrate my 80th Birthday.
More than ever hygiene is important. Than money raised is to improve facilities for the street boys in Mukuru by harnessing Kenya's abundant sun to provide hot water.
Amazing bright boys, age 9-16, who have been living off their wits, foraging in bins for food, begging and stealing, sleeping where they could, in doorways, under bridges, and shortening the day by getting high on sniffing glue, petro, or drugs. After 2-3 years for whatever reason on the streets, realizing this is not the way they want to live their lives.
The Mukuru Promotion Centre Rehab unit gives them a chance. A song composed by one of the boys “Nimechange Life Yangu” meaning ‘I have changed my life’ is popular with the others. They know they are lucky, a roof over their heads, and are catching up on their education and develop their talents. Acting out skits is also popular. They also are learning other life skills- growing vegetables, beadwork, and carpentry. One of the projects is making cooking sticks for one of their local sponsors - a target of two hundred pieces each. Sadly another was to make coffins, little did they know that one would be used by one of last year’s graduates who was killed by a lynch mob.
All the money raised by the skydive will be spent well, as we have control of the purse strings. By ‘we’ I mean the Big 5, the Kenyan nickname for 5 freelance women volunteers, unattached to any charitable NGO. I am very much the rookie only having joined the group 3 years ago. The others have been going out for many years. We have all been caught by Sister Mary Killeen’s dynamism. She has worked in the Mukuru slums for over 30 years raising the living standards and helping at every crisis. She has shown us how small things and personal support has helped.
Going out regularly twice a year means we get to know the individual boys and basically, they are our extended families. We act as grandmothers, chiding the boys when needed but also encouraging them. Small things happen when we are around, new shoes, chips for dinner, a television, blankets. Sadly we cannot visit them for the foreseeable future but we continue to support them in every way we can.
As we are made aware of their needs, we have got more ambitious, new skills and an educational building called Hekima House, a library where the older boys can study, recreational facilities, basic gardening equipment helping them to produce their own vegetables and hopefully shortly thanks to your generosity hot water!
Organizer
Paula Cullen
Organizer
