One woman's desire to rehabilitate destitute children

Lucy Wilma with some of the children inside one of the empty classrooms at the rehabilitation centre in Maralal. She says any children flogged into her house for aid until she decided to start a rehabilitation to centre.[ PHOTO by BOAZ KIPNG’ENOH/STANDARD]

Samburu, Kenya: In the vast land of Samburu County, devastating effects of decades-long, deadly rustling sprout from the ground like sore thumbs. Hunger pricks the wound each year.

Poverty is the ultimate consequence of these problems as women are turned into widows and children rendered orphans.

Most of these dejected children found their way to Maralal town, the county headquarters of the semi-arid county where they fled for a better life. Unfortunately, the urban life was harsher and the children found solace on the streets.

Widows who moved with their children to Maralal town would then engage in selling illicit brews and prostitution to feed them.

A young woman working with the Catholic Church Mission who witnessed the sad scenario in the 1990s went on a rescue mission; plucking the children from the vagaries of street life.

After rescuing the children, Lucy Wilma, 48, found herself being a mother to them.

From Baragoi in Samburu North to Amaiya bordering Baringo East, Wilma attended to desperate children who needed her most.

“For lack of proper parental care, the children were exploited as they provided cheap labour. They were also used to traffic drugs and other substances,” she says.

Wilma, who was serving as a clerk at a church dominated by Italian missionaries then called Consolata Fathers, says most of the women who fled to Maralal for safety after their villages were attacked, died of HIV-related complications, leaving behind children, and adding to the orphan population.

Wilma, who undertook a secretarial course in Eastern Province after completing her secondary education at St Theresa Girls’ Secondary in Wamba, Samburu East, would later join the Christian Childrens’ Fund (CCF) that engaged her fully to help the destitute children and she became their mother.

“When we visited conflict areas after raids, we found children in very pitiable situations. Most of them lost their parents to rustling. You look at them and your heart goes out to them,” says Wilma, a mother of four says.

Drought and poverty added salt to injury and destitute children increased in Maralal.

The children have grown in number and become overwhelming for Wilma but she says she will do what she can to help them, one child at a time.

“Children who recently found their way into town somehow found me; they would come knocking at my door. When they knock, you can’t chase them away. You open and give them food.”

But her house became too small to accommodate them. So she found them a room at Loikas Primary School where they spend their nights and her job is to find them food.

It is from here that she established Samburu Street Children Rehabilitation Centre in Maralal. God would later answer her prayers when in 2005 two German students attached to the Catholic Mission, gave her Sh30,000 as a donation to help the children.

“I topped up the money and bought a plot in Maralal where the Catholic Church Missionaries helped to build four rooms. The church continued to help but the programme ended in 2006. I then continued to use my salary to feed them,” she notes.

So far, the centre has 80 children — 40 others are fully reformed and are out of the centre pursuing higher education in different institutions across the country.

Rescue of seven girls

The rescue of seven girls who had been held for prostitution in a Maralal bar in 2010, is the most memorable point in her work with children.

“They were young but were being sold for sex. We informed the police and we rescued them and later transferred them to Nairobi.”

Wilma says it is her wish that all children who find themselves in such unpleasant situations are salvaged from destruction to become useful members of the society in future.

“If we don’t help them, it is the whole society that will pay the price of increased crime and other vices as result of deviance,” she notes.

She says the children she has rescued are talented and can perform well in sports and other areas. But with no public technical schools in the county, Wilma says it is difficult for those who reform, as they lack proper institutions to learn and expand their skills.

“I advise most of them to pick up vocational training opportunities such as weaving - especially the girls - and football clubs for boys.”

Thanking the Samburu County Government for donating them food during the Christmas holiday, she would like to see organisations coming up to join hands with her for the benefit of the children and hence the wider society.

transformed

Patrick Mario, 25, says the intervention of Wilma in is life transformed him fully. From hopelessness, he found himself in school and completed his secondary education. He is now back at the centre counselling and encouraging the other children who are learning to change their world as well.

Mario, an orphan who scored a C in KCSE at Kirisia Boys’ Secondary School in Samburu Central in 2010, says Wilma is the only mother he has. He now hopes to get assistance to pursue a career in teaching so as to assist his fellow street children who are currently at the centre.

“I was sleeping here on the bare floor with no blankets until I joined secondary school. I know how life is here and relate with them well,” says Mario.

As a volunteer at the centre, Mario says he is giving back.

“I am here to counsel them and teach them basic skills, about academics and life. I teach them simple maths and languages,” he says.

“We will not be on the streets forever. Life has to change one day,” he tells the children as he encourages them, adding that nothing lasts forever.

Baawa Ward Representative Pius Lobuk, who chairs a committee of eleven members at the rehabilitation centre, is optimistic that a bill on special groups, which is pending debate in the county assembly will be beneficial to the children once passed into law.

“Maralal will become the worst town if these children are not rehabilitated. The number of idle children is increasing daily,” says Lobuk.

He says the county government should support Wilma’s efforts to mitigate the looming menace.

“The increase of street children in Maralal is worrying. No NGO or initiative has been focused on rehabilitating these children,” he says.