Milele means forever in Swahili, but what does that really mean to Milele? That is a question that our Trustees have been pondering over the last few months. Whilst we have a wide variety of ages across our 19 sponsored young people, we are now being faced with our first batch of graduates from the sponsorship programme.

As I am sure you will have seen, Emmanuel graduated from University of Nairobi in December 2018 and if you have not seen this then please check out our blog post all about his journey here. Charo has completed some operational courses in driving heavy machinary and is on the cusp of joining the world of work and Josephine is hot on his heels and will be completing her secretarial studies in the coming few months.

Obviously, sponsorship cannot continue forever and to do so would be counterintuitive. We are supporting these young people to equip themselves with the skills they need to build a sustainable life independently.  Having said that, part of the ethos of our charity is that all the children and young people have a sense of community and family together. Which leaves us with a conundrum that sponsorship must come to an end, but we also don’t want to oust our young people from the community and support they have access to.

We are also very aware that building financially independent young adults does not mean that they will never again need extra money or support. Sometimes we are all faced with unexpected costs or perhaps we want to do some further learning or training and this all comes with a price tag.

After many discussions and head scratching, the Trustees of Milele are pleased to introduce our “Graduate Program”. The program has two primary functions.

Firstly, it is committed to maintaining support for our young adult’s emotional wellbeing and family. This means that they will continue to be a part of the Milele family and invited to any group gatherings. Perhaps being a role model for the other children in our programme, as ultimately it is their hard work and dedication that has led to their success and not the sponsorship. Most importantly we wanted to ensure the continued access to the support offered by Rieder and the comfort that they will always be part of the Milele family.

Secondly, using a portion of the incredible amount raised at our ball, we have set up a “Graduate Grant Fund”. This Grant is open to all the graduates of the sponsorship programme. In order to receive funds from the Grant they will need to complete a short application form which sets out what the need the money for, such as training course or living costs for an unpaid internship, and also how much they will need from the fund. The application is a way for our graduates to practice their skills, learn about the process of applications as well as financial planning.

As always Rieder’s Kenyan knowledge and experience is invaluable to Milele and our decision making, with the Graduate Grant being no exception to this. Rieder will be integral in not only supporting with the graduate with their application but also the evaluation of the  application in terms of assessing the viability and sustainability of the proposal in Kenya.

As Trustees we recognise that our strengths lie in the administration of the fund’s resources and the importance of local knowledge in this process cannot be understated. For example, an application to purchase solar phone chargers with a view to operating a business generating income from charging people’s phone may not make any sense when we live in a country with ready access to electricity in every home. However, when looked at from a Kenyan perspective where access to electricity and phone charging facilities can be very limited, it actually presents as an astute business plan.

Although the Graduate Grant is a new mechanism for Milele, we have already been supporting our young people with the type of activities we envisage will be perfect for the grant. For example, with obtaining their driving licence or completing some further education courses.

We are absolutely thrilled to be sharing this new plan with you all and we hope you will agree that it fits with perfectly with our vision of forever.

Hi All, Back in 2008 Amy and I founded Milele as a way to help children from difficult backgrounds in Kenya to access high quality education. We were young, naive and optimistic; with the help of our family and friends we managed to scrape together the money we needed to get Milele started and began sponsoring the first 4 boys.

Over time, Milele has grown from our original group of 4 boys to 19 children and whilst our family and friends are still being just as amazing as ever, we have added a wonderful group of new sponsors and supporters who help us to keep Milele going.

We have also been incredibly fortunate to be able to employ Rieder as a full time sponsorship coordinator to manage sponsorship on a day to day basis, provide support to more vulnerable families and make sure we are always doing the best for our sponsored children.

Milele will officially be 10 years old in September 2018 and we would love to get together will all of the people who have helped us over the years to celebrate our collective achievements and raise some money for the exciting years ahead.

Milele 10 year ball invitations

We have sent out invites to all of our sponsors and supporters (so if you haven't received one please get in touch and we'll arrange for a replacement to be sent) and we would now like to extend the invitation out to anyone who is interested in finding out a little more about Milele and helping us raise some money for future children.

The event is being held at Dixie Pavilion in Market Bosworth on the 7th of July 2018, tickets are £60 each and can be bought directly from Amy or myself. We would love to have a room full of people so please consider bringing friends and family with you so we can celebrate together.

Thanks for your support!

Richard

Milele means 'forever' in Swahili and is a very small charity which Rich and I set up in 2008.

We are a sponsorship programme, so we sponsor the education of children from the townships just north of Mombasa, Kenya.

Although education is at our heart, we have grown and learned a lot along the way and now Milele is really much more than that. We have a food programme and a healthcare programme for our children as part of a really holistic approach. We also provide access to counselling and psychological therapy, as well as social and emotional educational input. All of our children come from very vulnerable backgrounds and many were at very high risk of issues such as child marriage, early pregnancy, HIV or just simple malnutrition before we sponsored them.

Our children are all different, and as such have different needs and require different support. We have built personalised plans of care for every child, tailored around them and their family to help keep them safe, healthy and happy.

I always think of Milele as a way to give children a choice. So many babies in this area are born with their lives mapped out for them - I truly feel this is outrageous and it makes me angry when I think of the injustice of it. Children have their whole lives ahead of them, they have a basic human right to an education, a right to decide for themselves what they want to do and who they want to be.

All 18 of our children are at different stages in their personal journey, from their first baby steps in Kindergarten to heading towards university graduation. Most importantly, all our children are in school and learning, progressing and able to make choices about their future.

This success is thanks to YOU! Milele sponsors, volunteers and supporters. You are changing lives, you are making a difference - so be SUPER PROUD OF YOURSELVES!

On behalf of all our families, thank-you!

 

We thought you might be chomping at the bit for more information about the first four sponsored boys on the programme, so we thought we would give you a bit of background to them and why they are sponsored now.

When we first met Charo, Safari, Kaingu and Emmanuel they were four brothers in a family of 11 children, all staying in a dilapidated mud hut in a rural village called Takaungu; about 40 minutes north along the coastline from Mtwapa. The family consisted of 7 girls and 4 boys, their (estimated) ages ranging between the eldest at 15 years and the youngest at 2 years.  The ages are all estimates since the children don't know their dates of birth and because they were not born in hospitals but in the village they do not have formal birth notification cards! 

The boy's father had recently passed away, and his three wives, the mothers of the children, had all abandoned them. They had one uncle who was attempting to help them with food and clothing, but who was also struggling to feed his own family. Consequently, they were living alone. The boys were working in a local quarry making bricks to earn a small amount of money for food, but the family were struggling to make ends meet. The house they were sleeping in was impossibly small, with almost no furniture and all four walls were in a state of severe disrepair; it was clear they could not remain in this situation any longer.

We began to look for alternative accomodation for all the children, hoping to find them stable places to live where they would recieve food, water and access to education. The chief of the village and the district childrens officer along with some relatives of the children we traced in Takaungu all suggested children's homes to be the best option and the search began!

After finding many homes full to the rafters we came across Riziki Children's Home, and New Light Boys Home. The guardians at these homes were happy to accept the 8 youngest children and so four of the girls are now staying in Riziki and attending school there. The eldest 3 girls are now living in the village with their uncle, but without the babies to look after, are able to go to school and feed themselves more easily.

1 year on, Charo, Safari, Kaingu and Emmanuel are now fully settled into the New Light Children's Home in Mtwapa and are firm friends with many of the other boys living there. They are also now attending Mtwapa Academy, one of the best schools in the area, and are newly sponsored as part of Milele.

We are intending to help New Light and Riziki Childrens Homes in their respective endeavours to begin a regular connection and link the boys and girls together again. We also hope to instigate visits between the boys hometown of Takaungu where the eldest sisters are staying and the two homes so the connection between them does not weaken.

Over the next few days we are hoping to post some individual profiles of the boys so you will get to know them with us!