ACK St Pauls Buduma Child and Youth Development Centre in partnership with Compassion International is shining hope on vulnerable families through its amazing programs that have been adding value to the less privileged families in Marachi East, Butula Constituency, Busia County.
Founded in 2014, the organisation has over 324 children and youths who are being supported in all aspects of life.
The organisations targets children from the age of three and half to 22 years where they support them realise their talents and start nurturing them to their advantage. They also take care of their education up to the level they wish depending on their abilities.
Several of its pioneer youths are doing very well in several institutions of learning across the country.
“It is easier to mould a child to be a responsible person if you start early. As a religious organisation, we are guided by the word of God that says: train up a child in a way he should go, and he shall not depart from it when he grows old. We start when they are young, to be able to identify their talents, instil discipline in them as early as enough and above all, spiritual development which is best installed at a tender age,” says the Project Director, Joseph Mulama.
He adds, “You will agree that it is easier for the children to grasp spiritual elements at a tender age as opposed to all-grown individuals. Most of us still remember the memory verses that we were taught in churches when we were young as opposed to now.”
Speaking to this writer in his office, Mr Mulama highlighted several objectives they have for children and youths.
He notes their mission is releasing children from poverty in Jesus name.
Physical Domain
The organisation, has the needy of the neediest families and for that, they take care of these families by ensuring that children are free from disease, get proper diet and their health interests taken care of by bringing professional health officers to check them.
“A healthy body is a healthy mind and we prioritise health of our children for them to realise their full potential in other essential fields. We also emphasise on sporting activities for the children to keep fit,” he says.
Social Emotional Domain
The institution always strive to make sure that by the time the youths leave the programme, they can relate well with the external world or society.
“We don’t keep them long here, the moment a youth clocks 22 years, we believe they got proper training especially in issues that concerns them and we really gauge them in how they train with others,” Mulama says.
Cognitive Domain
The organisation ensures that any sponsored child has at least an income-generating skills like poultry farming, agriculture, electrical and animal husbandry something that can enable them be self-reliant after they leave the program.
Leadership Development
This is best harnessed between the ages of 14-22 years.
At the said age, leadership aspects are inflicted to the youth and elements of leadership packaged well to them.
Majority of children are leaders in their respective schools because they start mentoring them early enough.
It is noted that, children under the programme take their programme in a school of their choice and that they only convene at the centre during holidays.
Mulama points that they only take one child from every needy family regardless of the number of children in the family but a program has an elaborate plan for the parent or guardian.
“We have several needy cases but we lack capacity to accommodate everyone and that is why we only take a single child from each family whom we strive to give the best up to the age of 22 years. We believe that at 22, the sponsored child will have completed university education,” he says.
To ease the burden on the family, the program that aims at giving the best to the parent or guardian so that they can be able to take care of the rest of the children. The below measures are considered:
- a) Caregiver Empowerment
Considering limited resources which can’t accommodate everyone, we prefer empowering the caregiver to take care of the rest of the family members.
We always have monthly meeting with them, train them on different world-views, table-banking among others.
We believe that poverty is mental and anything can be done if you put your best feet forward and work hard.
b) Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSA)
Parents are grouped into a group of 15-25 members. They plan monthly meeting depending on their schedule.
They also pull resources id between 50-100 and above which are taken to a bank and after sometime, they can take a loan from a bank to finance their enterprise like farming, entrepreneur etc.
Personal enterprise is also encouraged.
c) Table-banking
Resources are pulled together and borrowed in a month.
Give out loan out on a monthly interest which so far worked very well.
d) Enterprise development
Caregivers with common interests are grouped together and an expert is sourced to train them depending on their area of interest i.e potato farming, business etc
We empower our caregivers so that they can be self-reliant and be able to support the rest of the family members.
Like we provide seeds, fertilizer and even provide market for their products. So far those we are with are adding value to their families.
e) Networking (KAPU AFRICA)
The organisation through KAPU AFRICA, has been able to support several parents/families with mixed rice and fortified porridge flour which has greatly improved the livelihood of parents with underlying medical conditions.
We have children in our programs whose parents have underlying medical conditions and our networking is also helping us great.
f) Health
Health is a major priority to us, 90 per cent of medical cost of our beneficiary is taken care of by the program,
Any sponsored child has his medical cost taken care of even if it means flying him / her out for specialized treatment.
The organisation’s top interest is Child Advocacy.
According a resident, the organisation has do so much in child advocacy and rampant cases of child abuse that were common have now gone down as the community is enlightened and doing right.
For the first time since inception, pupils from the centre staged a performance at the National Music Festivals a week ago at Dedan Kimathi University of science and technology and their performance was impressive.
Performing under class 917H, the group was ranked position one with 92 marks in a hotly contested class.
Speaking to this writer, Weizah Odhiambo said it is hard work, passion, determination and the believe in supreme God that made them perform impressively in national festivals.
“We know what we wanted and gave out our best, it is going to be great in the long run,” says Weizah.
At the centre, youths are trained on Brass band, Football, Skating, Drama and many others.
“All these have never been possible with fair share of challenges. We have faced various challenges including limited resources which limit us on number of beneficiaries to enlist on the program. We humbly appeal to like-minded individual to join us in supporting this noble course as a lot remains to be untapped in the region,” he says.
