We wanted to update you all on how coronavirus is impacting Milele and our families in Kenya. I'm sure many of you have been worried about our sponsored families and our sponsorship co-ordinator Rieder, just as we have.

The problem:

As you are aware, COVID19 is a global pandemic and there have been confirmed cases in Kenya. The Kenyan government has taken a range of significant actions to attempt to prevent the virus spreading.

The difficulties our families are facing are similar in many ways to the challenges facing us here; however it is complicated by poverty, as everything is. For all of our families being unable to leave the house means being unable to earn money to feed themselves. Very few have running water and most cannot afford soap,  meaning that taking sensible hygiene precautions is difficult too.

Currently, the schools are closed and families are facing the same challenge as many of you I'm sure - keeping their children busy, distracted and happy while in lockdown. Of course, most of the families we support do not have the benefit of electricity, toys etc so this is understandably presenting some difficulties particularly for our most active children.

What are we doing to help?

* Food parcels - We have arranged for food parcels to all our families to sustain them while they are unable to go out and these all include soap and/or alcohol hand gel.  We are hoping that this will mean they are not forced to leave home.
* Health Promotion - We have given educational handwashing information using picture resources and Rieder, our charity co-ordinator in Kenya, visited in the early days to give essential basic advice around handwashing, social distancing and how to protect vulnerable members of the family as best they can. 
* Remote Contact - Rieder has also ensured that each of the families have access to a telephone (if not of their own then through a neighbour or close relative) so that he can contact them and have given them all scratch cards with phone credit on in case of an emergency.
* Medication - Some of our children take regular medication. We have been working with Rieder to ensure they are still able to collect their medication with minimum social contact as this is obviously vital at all times, and most especially at the moment.
* Education - Rieder has been receiving school work from their schools remotely and is printing and dropping it outside their homes for them all, this has been vital to keep them occupied.
* Safeguarding - Of course, a few of our children have rather difficult home lives and we are also aware of safeguarding issues at this time. We are doing our very best on a case-by-case basis to monitor this closely and trying to mitigate what we can and we are ready to put in extra support remotely if and when it is needed.

What does this mean for you?
As many of you will know, we have set Milele up in a way that allows us to respond to emergencies. We did not expect a pandemic; however we are ready to act to support our families. This extra support is being funded over and above our normal sponsorship through use of our emergency funds.

*There is of course no obligation on you at all, however this is an extremely difficult period for small charities like us and if anyone is in a position to and would like to make a donation to help us through this time it would be very gratefully received indeed. Equally if anyone is in the position to commit to sponsoring a child for £7.50 a month, we really do need your support now more than ever. Please get in touch by sending us a message if you would like more information.*

Each of us is facing our own different challenges right now and no-one is finding this easy. Thank-you for all your kind thoughts and messages and we send lots of love right back to you.

Stay safe xxx

Amy, Rich, Rieder and our trustee team.

At Milele’s core, we believe in choices & opportunities. The young women supported through our sponsorship program aren’t passive in their lives, we aren’t there to ‘save’ them or swoop in and do all the hard work. The young women supported by Milele are a true mix of everything it means to be a woman. They are strong, they are intelligent, they can be vulnerable, they have life experience in many cases far beyond their young years, they have a huge range of hopes and dreams for their lives. We have learnt far more from these young women than they will ever be able to learn from us.

When we provide sponsorship, it comes with the promise to do everything we can to keep the young person safe, healthy both physically & mentally, well fed and educated. But on top of that, we promise that - while we might offer guidance (often provided by Rieder, our co-ordinator in Kenya), it is THEY who will make the big choices about their lives.

We have young women on the way to career paths they have chosen, one in college, some headed for clearly academic paths, some whom their desire was to become a Mum, and have done so (and are superstar Mummy’s) - and also have been supported to finish school at the same time when they expressed that was their desire.

These young women might not have had the financial means to make their choices into realities, but they always had the motivation and the strength to do it with a little helping hand.

Here’s to the young women of Milele, may we continue to learn from them in every way. And here’s to you, for doing your bit to get them there.

Girl Power!

Pendo is back at school and showing us what she is made of!

You need to be living under a rock these days to not hear about International Women’s Day, it is all over the news and social media. Whilst we are a little late to the party, I wanted to dedicate this blog post to the girls on our program and women in Kenya generally.

I don’t think it would come as a surprise to anyone to know that in Kenya the expectations of girls can be vastly to different to those of boys, but do we really understand just how different and what those expectations really are. And more importantly, what is Milele’s role in all of this.

According to Unicef statistics, in the period 2000-2012 the percentage of adolescent males currently married was 0.4%, compared with 12.1% of girls. This is a staggering difference and a stark reminder of the glass ceiling that faces many of the young girls in Kenya.

To be clear, we at Milele we are in no way against our girls settling down, getting married and having children. If that is their choice, and that is the key word, choice. It is such a small and simple word yet it holds so much power. Pendo has definitely taught us this lesson and we have realised first hand how powerfully she wanted to be a mummy; and she is excelling at it!

The Oxford Dictionary defines choice as “the right or ability to choose”.   This is what we want for all of our children, and not just the girls. To have their lives opened up to the possibility of choosing.

Linet and her beautiful baby girl.

As a mum of two girls living here in the UK, I often feel like I am battling a glass ceiling that society is covertly putting in place when my back is turned. My eldest daughter said to me a few years ago “mummy we can’t read that book, it is about cars and so that is a book for boys.” To which I took a silently took a deep breath and kindly pointed out that there was no such thing as boys’ books and girls’ books, they were all simply books and anyone could read them. Fast-forward 3 years and that same daughter recently picked up a book that said ‘Stories for Girls’ and said to me “Mummy, this should just say stories for children and not just girls”. I beamed with pride and my inner feminist did a little whoop!

If my daughter is growing up in a household where we have cars, dinosaurs, dolls, teddies, beads, and tools and she can still feel the impact of society telling her that stories about cars are for boys, then it is hard to imagine living in a society where these views are entrenched, particularly in the more rural communities.

So, what is the solution, and how do we give our girls that choice that we were speaking about earlier? The key to these almost impossible questions is education, education, education.

Building positive male models is also really important, and Riziki and Rieder have formed a lovely bond.

In a country where education is not a given and comes at a price, the education of boys can all too often be prioritised over the education of girls. After all, the men are going to be the ones going out to work, and you don’t need an education to get married and have children. This is where choice comes in. If our girls are educated to the same standard as the boys, and see different possibilities in front of them, then who knows what may become of them. Maybe they will still settle down and have a family, maybe they will get a job in a bank, maybe they will become a teacher. Ultimately, we do not know what they will choose, but we will do everything in our power to make sure that it is a choice that they have the luxury of making.

We are incredibly proud of all of the girls on our program, whether this is Josephine going to secretarial college, Ummy acing her KCPE exams, Amina regularly achieving results of 90% in maths or Pendo showing us how she manages being a mummy and being at school; we could not be more proud of each of their individual achievements and are excited to see what the future holds for each of them.

Ordinarily Milele sponsors young children beginning at their primary education, however there is one exceptional young man who broke all the rules.

Back in 2010 we had worked with Emmanuel at his primary school, with Rich in particular developing a great relationship with him after teaching some maths lessons at the school. Emmanuel would arrive before everyone else in the morning and was the last to leave at night. He came in to study on weekends and holidays, even when the school was officially closed! He repeatedly asked Rich to set him extra homework questions even after he had completed an entire textbook worth of practice questions!

Generations of Emmanuel’s Family all live together in a rural village

Despite being exceptionally hardworking, Emmanuel’s family are not financially able to afford school fees. Living in a remote rural village, Emmanuel’s father works his land to feed the very large extended family. In addition to this, just as Emmanuel started his final year of secondary school his family had some very bad news. After losing his two year old sister in a fire accident, his mother was also diagnosed with advanced breast cancer. Despite receiving treatment, she tragically passed away in December 2010.

Emmanuel and his family value education above all else, and indeed his mother sacrificed the money saved for her operation in order to enable Emmanuel to attend the first term of secondary school and continue achieving.

Built his own house

Emmanuel (on the right) with his father, brother and little sister outside his house.

Without your support to achieve his dreams, Emmanuel would never have had the chance to attend any form of education beyond primary level and his future would have been restricted and far too predictable – what a waste of a hardworking, dedicated and passionate young mind.

In September 2014 Emmanuel became the first on the Milele Programme to go to University – beginning a BSC in Economics and Statistics at the University of Nairobi. The University of Nairobi is the best university in Kenya and 7th in Africa. Emmanuel has performed really well in his first semester receiving A grades for some of his varied modules averaging a top B grade over his 8 modules.

Starting out

Emmanuel starts his University journey

Now a proud graduate

4 years later with a degree in Economics and Statistics

A degree level education has opened doors for Emmanuel which no-one in his family has ever been able to access. His future is bright and exciting and most importantly he has choices and control over his life.

We are very excited to announce that after four hard years the 21st December 2018 saw 'Big' Emmanuel graduate from the University of Nairobi with a 2.1 degree in Economics and Statistics! His dad attended his graduation along with Rieder and we as you can see from the photos attached he was quite rightly glowing with pride. They all went out for a meal together afterwards to celebrate his success and had a fabulous day. 

No-one could be more deserving of a degree. Our first graduate of the Milele programme, Emmanuel gives us all a reason to be proud and proves what Milele is here to do.

“Emmanuel is a trailblazer and an inspiration – he shows us all that with determination, perseverance and big ideas we can achieve anything.”