This month saw the recruitment of two new children into our programs. We rescued a three-year-old girl from an abusive home in Kibera.  Blood test from the lab showed that she was quite ill so we admitted her to the hospital where she is now. We also admitted another baby to the Respite Centre in our Orphanage  but also had to admit her to the hospital last week. Hopefully both will be fine and will return to us soon. Carers Alice and Josephine and Nurse Elizabeth, will hopefully be able to get them back to good health once they are stable. We will update you with further information soon.

Image: Children attending class at the Nyumbani Children’s Home. Photo © Ben Curtis/Associated Press

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Nyumbani UK focuses its efforts on providing healthcare, education and shelter to AIDS-orphans and HIV positive children in Kenya. We support the education of vulnerable children with three distinct projects – the Nyumbani Children’s Home, the Nyumbani Village and the Lea Toto Project. We particularly focus on education as we believe having a good education can give children the tools to pull themselves out of poverty in the future. Nyumbani is home to approximately 100 children ranging in age from newborn to twenty-three years old.  The village currently has over 750 HIV/AIDS affected orphaned children (only a handful have tested HIV positive), 64 grandparents and 50 staff reside in the village. Located on its grounds is the Hotcourses Primary School, and the Lawson High School. Through the Lea Toto programme Nyumbani has been able to assist an additional 3,000 HIV+ children living in the slums of Nairobi.

To find out more on our projects, please go to http://www.nyumbani.org.uk/

For more news stories and articles click here

Still looking for that special gift for Valentines? Spoil your loved one this Valentine’s Day and make a difference to international development in one easy step…

Give the gift of education to others

Give a monthly gift of a direct debit donation of £15 – that’s just 50p a day. With child sponsorship you can help fund a child’s education, and help to break the cycle of poverty for some of the world’s poorest families.
www.nyumbani.org.uk 

Treat your loved one to a Special Dinner at House of Commons

There’s nothing more special than a dinner at Parliament. On Thursday March the 29th 2012, Nyumbani UK will be holding its second gala dinner at the House of Commons. The dinner will take place in the Members’ Dining Room with a drinks reception beforehand in the Strangers’ Dining Room. BBC Journalist Kate Adie will also be speaking after dinner. Tickets cost 150 and you can email anna.gowdridge@nyumbani.org.uk to book a table or you can call on 0207 384 6060.

Help Kiss Goodbye to Hunger

Honour someone you’re thankful of at Valentine’s Day by making a donation in their name to the United Nations World Food Programme. The World Food Programme helps provide 7,698 HIV positive children with nutritional support through our Lea Toto program.
https://usa.wfp.org/donate/valentine

A Valentine’s Card to raise Awareness

The great people over at One have created a very special valentine card that spreads the love and hope for a world where HIV/AIDS no longer exists. You can simply download, print and send to that special someone. It’s certainly warmed our hearts! Go to One Campaign.

Second Image Photo ©Lynn Ouellette; Second Image ©WFP

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Nyumbani UK focuses its efforts on providing healthcare, education and shelter to AIDS-orphans and HIV positive children in Kenya. We support the education of vulnerable children with three distinct projects – the Nyumbani Children’s Home, the Nyumbani Village and the Lea Toto Project. We particularly focus on education as we believe having a good education can give children the tools to pull themselves out of poverty in the future. Nyumbani is home to approximately 100 children ranging in age from newborn to twenty-three years old.  The village currently has over 750 HIV/AIDS affected orphaned children (only a handful have tested HIV positive), 64 grandparents and 50 staff reside in the village. Located on its grounds is the Hotcourses Primary School, and the Lawson High School. Through the Lea Toto programme Nyumbani has been able to assist an additional 3,000 HIV+ children living in the slums of Nairobi.

To find out more on our projects, please go to http://www.nyumbani.org.uk/

For more articles like this, click here

After taking a three-hour Matatu ride to Nairobi followed by a seven-hour bus ride to Kisumu, I was greeted by Sam and Elin Duby, a wonderful couple I met at the last permaculture course held at Nyumbani village. I was super excited to see and hear all about Sam’s new company, Access Energy, which builds low-cost wind-turbines out of locally available materials for rural locations in Kenya. Currently he’s making the blades out of blue gum or eucalyptus trees – a readily available hardwood in Kenya. Maybe Nyumbani’s melia trees may be an option for him in the future!

His business model focuses on making an income-generating business out of the wind or solar energy that the technology provides, thus eliminating the high capital cost. I think this would be a great venture for Nyumbani to explore since we have a lot of wind and solar potential in Kitui. I was thinking we could have a small computer cluster/charging station set up in the village where we run computers and supply energy to anyone in the village or surrounding community for a small fee.

This is badly needed in the village since a lot of staff participate in distance learning classes and usually request to borrow my computer to do their research on the weekends since functional computers are extremely hard to come by here. If we had a charging station this would also eliminate the long line of cell phones, radios and battery chargers that flood the only plug in the guest-house. It would also help the children become more comfortable with using computer technology. The list of benefits goes on! What’s great about Access Energy is that you don’t pay any initial cost; you lease the technology and pay a small fee every month according to how much income you estimate you will generate until you’ve paid everything off. You can check out more about this company here: http://access-collective.com/energy/

Luckily, I was able to tag along with Sam last Friday while he visited a potential new customer, an educational centre that provides speech therapy. I didn’t know Kenya had anything like this! It’s quite a rare service provided and is sadly under-utilised. Besides speech therapy, they also offer training for children who have difficulty swallowing or have disabilities such as cerebral palsy. The speech therapist showed me lots of different chairs used to train and strengthen kids with disabilities and it gave me a great idea for Benson, an orphan at Nyumbani, suffering from cerebral palsy and who has very inadequate care at the moment. I got a picture of a design for a chair to help him with feeding, focusing his eyes and building muscle mass. It’s super easy to build and I look forward to handing this project off to a future Nyumbani volunteer to work with the Polytechnic school to build the chair for Benson (I wish I could do it but I have absolutely no time to take on a new project).

It’s funny that my break from Nyumbani provided me with so many new ideas for interesting projects to do! I hope both of them work out somehow. Anyway, next week I have a group of 18 students and teachers from Holy Child Secondary School in Ireland volunteering for one week. The Irish presence sure is strong in the village!

First Image: Photo via (cc) Flickr user USAID_Images ; Second Image:  Photo via (cc) Flickr user Accesscollective

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Nyumbani UK focuses its efforts on providing healthcare, education and shelter to AIDS-orphans and HIV positive children in Kenya. We support the education of vulnerable children with three distinct projects – the Nyumbani Children’s Home, the Nyumbani Village and the Lea Toto Project. We particularly focus on education as we believe having a good education can give children the tools to pull themselves out of poverty in the future. Nyumbani is home to approximately 100 children ranging in age from newborn to twenty-three years old.  The village currently has over 750 HIV/AIDS affected orphaned children (only a handful have tested HIV positive), 64 grandparents and 50 staff reside in the village. Located on its grounds is the Hotcourses Primary School, and the Lawson High School. Through the Lea Toto programme Nyumbani has been able to assist an additional 3,000 HIV+ children living in the slums of Nairobi.

To find out more on our projects or to make a donation, please go to http://www.nyumbani.org.uk/

Click here for more articles and news stories from us

Young school-leavers in our sponsored programs were encouraged to film their own videos. They were divided into groups and received training in camerawork, sound recording and editing and were enabled to make their own films, based on their personal ideas.

One of the groups decided to focus on the sustainability of the Nyumbani Village. Recreating the fabric of communities that have been destroyed by AIDS, the Village was built on previously arid wasteland. It is now home to over 750 orphans and aims to become completely self sustaining by 2018. One of the ways we hope to do this is through farming and agriculture.

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Nyumbani UK focuses its efforts on providing healthcare, education and shelter to AIDS-orphans and HIV positive children in Kenya. We support the education of vulnerable children with three distinct projects – the Nyumbani Children’s Home, the Nyumbani Village and the Lea Toto Project. We particularly focus on education as we believe having a good education can give children the tools to pull themselves out of poverty in the future. Nyumbani is home to approximately 100 children ranging in age from newborn to twenty-three years old.  The village currently has over 750 HIV/AIDS affected orphaned children. Located on its grounds is the Hotcourses Primary School, and the Lawson High School. Through the Lea Toto programme Nyumbani has been able to assist an additional 8,000 HIV+ children and their families living in the slums of Nairobi.

For similar articles and new stories, please click here

Brian would love to be a DJ. He lives in the Nyumbani Village, an orphanage based in Kitui, Eastern Kenya. The Nyumbani Village focuses on building self-sustaining communities to assist both elders and children left homeless by the AIDS pandemic. It provides housing, healthcare, counselling, education, and vocational training to orphaned and HIV+ children living under the care of elders, who have also been affected by AIDs, to create new blended families. Organic farming and vegetable production generate a sustainable income for the Village.

But more importantly, the children are given the opportunity to have a normal childhood where once their lives were blighted by AIDS. The kids were given a camera and encouraged to produce their own films and tell their own stories.

To find out more on Brian and all the children under Nyumbani’s care please go to http://tinyurl.com/cuy9c88

I also met with Mums and Uncles to set up the Evening Study Program and the Saturday Schedule. I opened the Library at 6:15pm so the kids can get the textbooks they need for homework. At 7:30pm I head to the Junior Hostel to help Standard 8 with their homework. This year there are seven kids including Stanley M, Moses, Mungai, Ann, James, Dennis and Margaret. I stay with them till about 8:50pm when I go to the Library to collect and put the textbooks back on the shelves. Then it is time to go home and relax.

We had a Management Meeting today and heard the many good things that are happening in all of our programs. We also talked about some preparations for our Board Summit Meeting starting on January 26th. It is always so nice to get to meet the board members and to hear about all of the projects they are involved in to help our Nyumbani programs.

Some more good news is that our Bernard who was an IT intern here at Nyumbani started a job as an IT person in our Leatoto Dagoretti Center. He is working on the database. Humphrey is also now working.

So, I think that is enough on Nyumbani for this week. Please continue to pray for us as we pray for you.

Love and prayers, Julie

Children at Nyumbani have now started their 2012 school year and we have five new children in Standard 1 in Karen C School. These are Winnie, Paul, Dickson, Innocent and James. The children were so excited to be starting school in their new uniforms. They were very excited to get in the van to go to School. If only every child could feel that way about their first day at school! We wish them luck in their school year.

Several children also transferred from Joseph kangethi School to Karen C. Fourteen of our kids have started the search for high schools and four have started the search for tertiary education. We very much look forward to the success of all children in our programs this year.

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Nyumbani UK focuses its efforts on providing healthcare, education and shelter to AIDS-orphans and HIV positive children in Kenya. We support the education of vulnerable children with three distinct projects – the Nyumbani Children’s Home, the Nyumbani Village and the Lea Toto Project. We particularly focus on education as we believe having a good education can give children the tools to pull themselves out of poverty in the future. Nyumbani is home to approximately 100 children ranging in age from newborn to twenty-three years old.  The village currently has over 750 HIV/AIDS affected orphaned children (only a handful have tested HIV positive), 64 grandparents and 50 staff reside in the village. Located on its grounds is the Hotcourses Primary School, and the Lawson High School. Through the Lea Toto programme Nyumbani has been able to assist an additional 3,000 HIV+ children living in the slums of Nairobi.

To find out more on our projects or to make a donation, please go to http://www.nyumbani.org.uk/

For similar articles and news stories, click here

Come Monday we had a New Year’s bash which started with a prayer and a delicious meal of roast beef, roasted potatoes and a salad. After that it was time to listen to the music of Luke O, our DJ, as we jumped on the trampoline and the bouncy castle or slid down the mountain slide. The day ended with a Magic Show and the presentation of little gifts to each child.

What was especially nice about this day was that we had a group of 12 Americans come to celebrate with us. This was a mission group who had come to give service for a week in Kenya. Some were doctors and nurses who had come to perform surgeries at Kikuyu Hospital and others had come to give service and learn about Nyumbani, Leatoto and the Village. These were primarily members of the Kerr family. While Doctor Douglas Kerr performed orthopaedic surgery at Kikuyu, his wife and daughter cleaned, washed windows, planted crops, and enjoyed playing and making bracelets with the kids at Nyumbani. Gavin Kerr, Doug’s brother and my former boss from MHS in Philadelphia, his wife, his daughter and friend also had the pleasure of playing with the kids and using a sewing machine they brought with them to help each child sew their own pillowcase. Practically every kid in Nyumbani went to sleep that night with a pillowcase they had made. It was very interesting to see how much the AB and BH boys enjoyed making their own pillowcase. I should have gotten my camera to catch the surprise expression on the face of each Paul Miki child as they pushed the pedal with their hand and the sewing machine started sewing their pillowcase. They all raced back to school to show Sister Emily and Teacher Margaret the pillowcase they made. Sister Emily very wisely wrote their name inside each pillowcase.

On Wednesday the group had taken a trip to Kibera and got to see for themselves the wonderful work we are doing there. They finished helping out at Nyumbani today and will be heading to the village on Monday and staying over till Tuesday. It was great for all of us to have them with us this week but I probably benefited the most by having time to share memories about St. Agnes Medical Centre and the wonderful senior team and staff we had. It was a spirited family who no matter where they are now are improving the quality of care of all those under their care. Please keep this entire group in your prayers.
We were also blessed by the presence of Doctor Courtney Mwangi and her husband Geoffrey from the USA. They spent the whole week performing audiology screenings on our children from Nyumbani and Leatoto. Courtney had come as a student a few years back and now returned as a doctor and a very good one I might add. She and Geoffrey, who is a nurse practitioner, did an excellent job working together to screen our children. Since Geoffrey is a Kenyan and a nurse he made it a lot easier to work with the children. Please ask God to bless Courtney and Geoffrey for taking time out of their family visit to help our kids. Also, let us pray that they keep coming back to help us. We still have a lot more audiology screenings to do.

Please pray for us as we pray for you. May 2012 be filled with Faith, Peace, Love, Hope, Happiness and Good Health!

Love and miss all of you. Julie

The days after Christmas bought lots of visitors to the Nyumbani Home but none was more surprising than a giant clown. A huge clown appeared at the school house with long hair and a big red nose which made all the kids cheer. Each child got to pose for a picture with the clown who had come all the way from Canada to visit the children. The children enjoyed playing with him especially after he promised he would send them the pictures and gave them all a piece of candy as he left. Other visitors to the Home included a family from Florida who came to Nyumbani to plant a tree to remember their safari driver who had recently died. They had so much fun playing with the children especially Anthony and Ndolo who felt they could teach them a thing or two about Kung Fu. Anthony and Ndolo are experts, you know!

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Founded in 1992, Nyumbani Children’s Home is an active response to the rising number of HIV infected children born in Kenya every day. Because infants carry many of their mothers’ antibodies through the first year of life, a number of newborns with infected mothers may give a ‘false positive’ and never actually develop the disease themselves. In fact, a full 75% of babies who test positive at birth will eventually be found not to have the virus. Tragically these children are often abandoned anyway, on the mistaken assumption that they are certain to develop and eventually succumb to AIDS. At Nyumbani, ‘home’ in Swahili, orphaned children are cared for while those who are found to be HIV+ are given the best nutritional, medical care, in particular access to anti-retroviral drugs, and access to education. The children reside in the Home until they become self-reliant.

To find out more on our projects or to make a donation, please go to http://www.nyumbani.org.uk/

Happy New Year Everyone! May your New Year be filled with a deeper faith, stronger hope, greater love and heartfelt peace. Hope all of you enjoyed last week as much as we did at Nyumbani.

On Saturday I spent most of the morning in Santa’s workshop packing gifts for the kids. In the afternoon I joined the sisters and the kids complete all the Christmas decorations including the manger and the hall. All of Nyumbani looked like a winter wonderland. In the evening all the sisters including myself and Sister Frances plus a van full of kids headed to the Don Bosco Center for a simple Christmas Eve Mass followed by soda, tea, cake and cookies with some entertainment by our Paul Miki kids. The kids led us in joyfully welcoming the baby Jesus. Then we headed back to Nyumbani where we completed our celebration with a bonfire.

Christmas Day was finally here. It was a great day for the birth of a baby in a stable but a little warm for Mother Christmas and her reindeer but all went well. The hall was decorated beautifully for Mass. The sisters did a great job as usual. The older girls, Mums and sisters led the choir while the Paul Miki kids were our dancers. The big ones sang wonderfully and the little ones captured our attention and our hearts with their dancing. Priscilla did a great job of singing the response. She has a lovely voice. Sister Mary shared a Christmas message with us and then after the final blessing we all headed to the tent in front of Paul Miki School for tea and snacks. While we were there a visiting family came and gave each child a Christmas gift.

During this time Maureen and Uncle Joseph and the boys had transformed the hall into a dining hall where all of us got to enjoy a delicious turkey dinner with roasted potatoes, rice, gravy, salad, fresh fruit and soda. Maureen and her staff prepared a superb meal. Luke played Christmas music for us while we ate. When all was done we cleared everything from the hall and then the kids returned to their cottages and hostels to wait for Mother Christmas. At about 4pm Mother Christmas arrived with Julie the elf and her assistant Frances as well as a few visitors bearing gifts. A couple of the visitors travelled with Mother Christmas and after she’d greeted the children and shared her gifts with them the visitors shared their gifts as well. Then the kids thanked Mother Christmas and the visitors for their gifts and sang a couple of Christmas carols for them. All the kids seemed happy and grateful for what they had received but something made me feel that the boys in AB were absolutely sure there was no such person as Mother Christmas but a few of them still took a picture with her.

Once Mother Christmas finished her rounds another group of gift givers had come from Virgin Airlines and went around distributing gifts to the kids. For the kids the day ended with a movie and candy. I believe all who were home including the adults had a great Christmas filled with joy, love and laughter. The joy of celebrating the birthday of Jesus with the children of Nyumbani and the staff and Sister Frances is a priceless gift.

Besides having all this fun I actually did some work. I made sure the old lab was clean so we can use it for our Audiology clinic on Monday. I also firmed up the work schedule for Gavin Kerr and his family and friends who are coming next week to help out and to visit all our sites before returning to the USA. Part of this group is a medical team who is performing surgery at Kikuyu Hospital next week but will be visiting us on Monday. I also worked with Protus to firm up two Fun Days for the kids on January 1st and 2nd. Finally, I worked on getting all the school awards ready so we can present them to the kids on January 8th. We have about 20 kids receiving Academic Awards and 16 receiving Improvement Awards. I have the award certificates all ready I just need to find and pack the awards they will receive.
Love and miss all of you. Julie

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To find out more on Nyumbani Projects or to make a Donation please go to http://www.nyumbani.org.uk/bani/kb_pub.pg_home?x=16180339

Nativity scenes made by the children

On Friday we finished our computer class, had tea and then I took a group of kids for a walk to Karen.  Since it was the last day of the Holiday Program I had promised them a walk to Karen and that they could have 100 shillings each to buy whatever they wanted at Nakumatt. Now most of us know that 100 shillings in not much money and you cannot buy much with it but no one told that to little Nicholas.  As we were walking home he was a little disappointed.  I had told them I would give them 100 shillings each and they could buy anything they wanted when we walked to Karen.  Now, he wanted a bike which was between 7,000 to 8,000 shillings and he thought he could get it for 100 shillings. I tried to explain the economic facts of life to him but I still think he would have preferred that bike to the crisps, candy and juice he had enough money to buy.

Nativity scenes made by the children

What helped was that I got a call from Protus as we were walking back to Nyumbani. There were some guests waiting there when we got back and they had some presents for the kids. This helped all to feel good as we walked back home.  After lunch the kids had art class. Sam and John wanted to finish the Nativity Scene and putting up the Christmas decorations. They really worked hard to accomplish all this. The Nativity Scene is cute and all the decorations look nice. John and Sam even had Jane and Priscilla help them do some Christmas paintings on the cottage windows. With the kids decorations and the nice trees that Sister Emily decorated in front of each cottage Nyumbani could be mistaken for the North Pole.  The only problem is we do not have any snow and my dream of making this happen I do not think will ever materialize.  Even if we had these snow making machines in Kenya, I know we could not afford to hire them to pump snow into the oval in the center of the cottages so the kids could wake up to snow on Christmas morning and come out to roll in it, make snow angels and throw snowballs at each other.  What a happy dream!!!

So, just want to end by saying all the kids are fine. They are looking forward to Christmas and I am sure they will have a really nice one especially after I find time tomorrow to pack a few Christmas presents for tomorrow.  I have never been so late doing this but this week was just too busy. I am sure the elves in my workshop will get it done tomorrow so Father/Mother Christmas can make his/her rounds on Christmas Day.

Please enjoy your Christmas.  May the peace, joy and love of the Christ Child be with you as you lovingly care for all our precious little ones here at Nyumbani.  Julie

PS
I’ll let you know how baby John responds to Santa Claus.

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To find out more on Nyumbani Projects in Kenya or to make a donation please go to http://www.nyumbani.org.uk/bani/kb_pub.pg_home?x=16180339

Each cottage now has a large cardboard decorated Christmas Tree hanging on its door and decorations hangings from its roofs. The dining hall has some Christmas balls made out of newspaper and painted hangings from the ceiling as well as Angels and Snowmen wind chimes. The wind chimes were supposed to be bumble bees and some type of bug with wings but they tried to paint them to look like snowmen and angels. Now the children are working on creating Nativity Scenes. Sister Julie will be sure to let us know how that works out.

To make a donation to Nyumbani and our projects in Kenya go to http://www.nyumbani.org.uk/bani/kb_pub.pg_home?x=16180339

On Monday Protus and I organised for all the kids, Mums and Uncles to go out to a Christmas Party provided by some of our friends. Every year they provide breakfast, lunch, snacks, games and entertainment for our kids as well as sending food donations back to us and the other organisations who attend. It is enjoyed by all who attend. Please ask God to bless them for their generosity to our children.
Since the kids were all out partying I was able to enjoy the day with Sister Rose, OSF who was heading home to the states on Tuesday.  Sister has worked for the last three years helping to set up and teach in our Lawson High School in Kitui. She was the Science teacher there and Sister Frances, OSF is the principal.  Sorry to say but due to a health problem it was necessary for her to return to the USA.  Her presence and her ministry will be missed.  We really appreciate all she has done for the children at Lawson High School.  Please pray that all goes well for her in the states. We also used some of our time this week to practice singing Christmas Carols.  We performed this week at the Porterhouse Restaurant in Nairobi on Thursday evening. Grace also sang at the Porterhouse,  she sang a solo using a song she wrote herself. She was excited when one of the customers said she should record the song. She has a beautiful voice.

We also have taken a couple of long walks outside the compound. We went in different directions each time and when we returned we were thirsty so we all had a soda.  We also had a good time playing games in the hall.  We divided ourselves into two pretty evenly matched teams and have had fun competing against each other. There is a game that is similar to dodge ball but a lot more fun that the kids love.  The kids are able to slide all over the hall floor to miss getting hit. Hopefully, next week will go well. All of our children are doing well. This beautiful weather is really good for them.  Take care of yourselves. You are loved and missed.  Julie

To find out more on Nyumbani Projects in Kenya or to make a donation please go to http://www.nyumbani.org.uk/

Nyumbani’s programs drew a lot of media attention during the days leading up to World AIDS Day. It started with an invitation for Sister Mary to participate in a one day Unitaid Conference on 21st November, 2011. Back in 2006, Unitaid, in collaboration with the Clinton Foundation, had taken the long-awaited initiative to have paediatric ARVs manufactured out of which the one pill, fixed dose combination (FDC) for children developed. Nyumbani has had access to it since late 2009. For our children for whom the regimen was suitable, the FDC meant that from taking several pills morning and evening, they needed only one pill. The benefit in user-friendliness and adherence success is tremendous. Five years since their foundation, Unitaid was interested in learning about the benefit of the FDC and chose Nyumbani as their program of choice to visit after the Conference. On 22nd November the Unitaid delegation arrived together with the East Africa media and Reuters. A morning of interviews took place, including two of our children who volunteered to be interviewed. The Financial Times interviewed me by phone and then came the South African Broadcasting Company and the Associated Press. All this media publicity gave the opportunity to advocate for paediatric FDC for second line ARVs as well as access to third line ARVs. Both these needs are now priorities for Unitaid. And, during the 7th Annual HIV Care and Treatment Consultative Forum, 22nd – 24th November, the revised guidelines for ART were launched which recognises the need for third line ARVs in Kenya.

This year Nyumbani opened its new Diagnostic Laboratory. The facility boasts nine laboratories, a library and a meeting room. It not only serves the Nyumbani village but also the outside community. The results of our diagnostic testing revealed high resistance to the antiretroviral drugs our children have access to in Kenya. Sister Mary was also able to get healthcare companies Johnson and Johnson to donate third-line ARV to two boys residing in our Nyumbani Home. But we know several more Nyumbani children will eventually need third line drugs in the not too distant future.

And there are still so many who need our help and support. Going forwards we shall be trying to increase the number of HIV+ children we help and we also aim to make the village sustainable through activities like the Melia Poject that is focussed on growing food and cultivating the land in the Nyumbani Village.
In addition to this, so far our Leo Toto project has helped around 8,299 people with social support. We develop self-help groups, child counselling and life-skills training. With your help we can continue to support and help more HIV positive children and do our part to help get to an AIDS-free generation.

For more information on what we do please go to our website: http://tinyurl.com/7zyxnyu

Please also take the time to make a donation. You sponsorship is greatly appreciated. Go to http://www.nyumbani.org.uk/bani/kb_pub.pg_home?x=16180339

For our children for whom the regimen was suitable, the FDC meant that from taking several pills, they needed just one pill. Five years since their foundation, Unitaid was interested in learning about the benefit of the FDC and chose Nyumbani as their program of choice to visit after the Conference. On 22nd November the Unitaid delegation arrived at Nyumbani together with the East Africa media and Reuters. A morning of interviews took place, and two Nyumbani children volunteered to be interviewed.

Some days later the Financial Times UK interviewed Sister Mary by phone and then came the South African Broadcasting Company and the Associated Press. All this media publicity gave the opportunity to advocate for pediatrics FDC for second line ARVs as well as access to third line ARVs. Both these needs are now priorities for Unitaid. And, during the 7th Annual HIV Care and Treatment Consultative Forum, which took place 22nd to 24th November, the revised guidelines for ART were launched which recognises the need for third line ARVs in Kenya.

To make a donation to one of our projects, please go to http://www.nyumbani.org.uk/bani/kb_pub.pg_home?x=16180339

You can read the articles at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ea899c72-1773-11e1-b20e-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1gbfnwVos

and also  http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/hiv-drugs-still-out-of-some-childrens-reach/

On Thursday I had some time to finish packing the kids’ birthday presents and get it all distributed to them. They might want to take some of the new clothes home with them on Sunday. I was also anxious to work on the Christmas Holiday Program for those kids who would be home. I was able to schedule computer Class for them each day with Bernard and with the help of Protus we were able to get teachers to come to teach cultural dance each day and then finish in the afternoon with Sam and Jon coming to do art.  They are going to work on Christmas art that the kids can use to decorate their cottages/hostels. On Friday morning I spent some time welcoming Jon and James who had come from Australia to facilitate Leadership Training for individuals from all three projects. The first workshop on Saturday will be with the senior management team. I had lunch with Jon and James as well as Francis from the Life Skills Training. Lots of good sharing went on there.  In fact, we shared for over 2 hours. Then I took a little time to complete what I needed to do with Francis.

In the evening I went to pick up Greg at the airport in the pouring rain.  He is a student from the US coming for the Permaculture course at the village. After we got back I decided I wanted to complete my update so I had just finished it and then the electricity went off and I could not save a draft.  The electricity was off for a couple of hours so I lost most of my update and I am trying to complete it now. I want to finish it and move onto decorating the cottage/hostels for birthdays and then to the Leadership Training at 9 AM. Pray it all works out.  Also, pray for Jon and James for so generously offering their services to Nyumbani. They will be having trainings throughout the month of December. Our social workers have been working hard to get all our children home for the holidays. They managed to place all but about 20 of the children into homes. All will leave on Sunday.  We will have an Open Day which includes Mass, a talk by Sister Mary, Happy Birthdays, lunch and then the kids will leave with their families.

The best news of the week is that Bernard has graduated with a degree in IT.  Sister Mary attended the graduation and was a proud Mom as her son received his diploma. His uncle also attended the ceremony. The boys threw him a party at Nyumbani with Ignatius as the MC.  Lots of words of wisdom were shared with him by those who attended but I was impressed by Moses who said “Ever Forward, Never Backwards” and Paul who told him to “Challenge the Challenges”. When Bernard spoke he was extremely aware of and appreciative of all that had been done for him at Nyumbani. Presently, he is helping out at Nyumbani and will teach the kids computers during the holiday program. We are all so proud of him and wishing him future success, especially as he looks for a job.

Last Friday saw a training session for young adults at the Nyumbani Home. The children were encouraged to ask questions from our panel. Young adults that had now left Nyumbani were also invited.

Around 50 young adults attended, beginning with our new Form 1 students.  The topic was on Living Positively. The presenters were three HIV+ women, Lucy, Teresa and Maureen, who were excellent role models for our children. The topics presented were: HIV Epidemiology, the HIV and AIDS situation in Kenya, management of HIV, dealing with stigma and discrimination, sex, sexuality and AIDs followed by a discussion. The kids openly asked questions throughout the presentations and the presenters, freely answered them. It was a good day for our youth to learn about the issues and pressures that will be facing them in future.

Find out more on Nyumbani UK and help us raise vital funds go to http://www.nyumbani.org.uk/bani/kb_pub.pg_home?x=16180339 Follow us on Twitter @NyumbaniUK

There were an estimated 184,052 children living with HIV in Kenya in 2009 and more than two-thirds of Kenyan children living with HIV who need medical treatment do not have access to it.

However global campaigns and petitions over the last decade have seen prices for first-line ARVs plummet, from over $10,000 a year to under $70. This allowed many, especially those living in the developing world to gain access to ARVs. Third-line ARVs however cost about $25,000 a year because they are only available from major pharmaceutical companies.

The Nyumbani Village has a laboratory which became the first to offer diagnostic resistance testing. The results of our testing revealed high resistance to the antiretroviral drugs our children have access to in Kenya.

We were able to get healthcare companies Johnson and Johnson and Merck to donate third-line ARV to two boys residing in our Nyumbani Home. But we know several more Nyumbani children will eventually need third line drugs in the not too distant future.

It is important to draw the world’s attention to the situation of many in the developing country who desperately need third-line drugs but are prohibited by cost. Petition your local MP, write a blog, tweet about this but please let the world know that it is not right. We cannot allow people to die needlessly when there is a solution.

For more on this story click to here.  Or go to our Flickr gallery http://flic.kr/y/jvVE5f

Please also click to the AlertNet article on this.

Above Photo: Ruth, Rosemary and Sharon with Izabella Hearn from our Spanish Board.

For more on this story please visit our Website

Other pictures courtesy of Shamus fatzinger at  http://randomvariation.wordpress.com/

We will soon be celebrating December Birthdays at our Nyumbani Home. The celebrants are Luke and Peter in hostel AB, Benson in C, Kevin O in D, Hanna and Priscilla in E, Beatrice in G and Laura P and Elizabeth in GH.  The staff birthdays are Jane K, Uncle John and Elijah. Happy birthday to you all, we are working on getting you some lovely presents to celebrate!

Find out more on Nyumbani UK and help us raise vital funds go to http://www.nyumbani.org.uk/ Follow us on Twitter @NyumbaniUK

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Founded in 1992, Nyumbani Children’s Home is an active response to the rising number of HIV infected children born in Africa every day. Because infants carry many of their mothers’ antibodies through their first year of life, a number of newborns with infected mothers may give a ‘false positive’ and never actually develop the disease themselves. In fact, a full 75% of babies who test positive at birth will eventually be found not to have the virus. Tragically these children are often abandoned anyway, on the mistaken assumption that they are certain to develop and eventually succumb to AIDS. At Nyumbani, ‘home’ in Swahili, orphaned children are cared for while those who are found to be HIV+ are given the best nutritional, medical care, in particular access to anti-retroviral drugs, and access to education. The children reside in the Home until they become self-reliant. For more info go to  Our Website

We had a graduation party on Saturday for some of our students at the Nyumbani Children’s Home. Martin graduated from Don Bosco Technical Training School and is now ready to use his tailoring skills. We are hoping he gets a job soon. It is hard to believe that Martin is over 20 years old and ready to move into the job market. He worked hard to finish his schooling.  We are proud of him and all of us were happy to be able to celebrate with him.
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Founded in 1992, Nyumbani Children’s Home is an active response to the rising number of HIV infected children born in Africa every day. Because infants carry many of their mothers’ antibodies through their first year of life, a number of newborns with infected mothers may give a ‘false positive’ and never actually develop the disease themselves. In fact, a full 75% of babies who test positive at birth will eventually be found not to have the virus. Tragically these children are often abandoned anyway, on the mistaken assumption that they are certain to develop and eventually succumb to AIDS. At Nyumbani, ‘home’ in Swahili, orphaned children are cared for while those who are found to be HIV+ are given the best nutritional, medical care, in particular access to anti-retroviral drugs, and access to education. The children reside in the Home until they become self-reliant. For more info go to Our Projects

Izabella Hearn from the Spanish Board came for a visit to the Nyumbani home. She has just written a book called African Safari that is kindly dedicated to Nyumbani. The kids were so happy to see her. Way to go Izabella!!! The book is to be published February next year by Pearson Longman, priced at £8.60. It can be bought through The Guardian’s online bookshop, Amazon and all other book retailers.

For more on on this story and further updates on the charity go to http://www.nyumbani.org.uk/bani/kb_pub.pg_home?x=16180339

A local teacher at our Hotcourses Primary School in Nairobi, Kenya shares a joke with his students. These children are orphans due to the AIDS crisis in Kenya. In 2009 there were an estimated 184,052 children living with HIV in Kenya. More than two-thirds of Kenyan children living with HIV who need treatment do not have access to it. The Nyumbani Village caters to the needs of some of these children by providing a home, medical care and education through the Hotcourses Primary School and Lawson High School.
For more information go to Our Projects.

Find out more on Nyumbani UK and help us raise vital funds go to http://www.nyumbani.org.uk/bani/kb_pub.pg_home?x=16180339 Follow us on Twitter @NyumbaniUK

Congratulations are in order!  We no longer have 14 standard 8 students but 14 Form 1 students. The kids finished exams on Thursday and then we had a little party to celebrate.

They have been studying seven days a week for the past year to get ready for these exams. Protus (our children’s home manager) made sure they had every standard 8 revision book they needed to study for the exams and all their supplies as well. We invited all to the party for showing so much support. The children could not play soccer on the field till after 4pm on Sunday because they would disturb standard 8 classes. But, do not feel too bad for them. While waiting to play they were riding bikes and scooters and playing basketball and volleyball on the other side of the compound.

Find out more on Nyumbani UK and help us raise vital funds go to http://www.nyumbani.org.uk/bani/kb_pub.pg_home?x=16180339 Follow us on Twitter @NyumbaniUK