CSR

t’s 4:30 am on a chilly Saturday morning, in the slums of Kawangware a woman is asleep in her house, so are the 32 children that live with her. Suddenly the mobile phone under her pillow rings, she turns and covers her head in a bid to ignore the phone call. The phone rings again and again and she angrily pulls out her phone and picks it up. “Hallo, hallo inspector Rono here, where are you madam?”, quickly the woman composes herself. “I am at home, in bed inspector” she answers. Then, there is a slight pause, followed by a loud baby’s cry. “What is the matter?” says the woman as she jumps out of bed. “Please come to the police station, and hurry” said the police officer and disconnects the phone. The woman dresses up quickly and half running, half walking rushes through the dark, narrow streets of the slums of Kawangware to the police station. On arrival, the nervous woman is welcomed by blank stares from three male police officers standing over a dirty green plastic bag. “What is the issue sirs?” asks the woman. “Well” said inspector Rono “see for yourself” says another police officer as he opens the paper bag. Shock, disbelief and pain run through the woman’s mind as she sees a newborn baby in the paper bag, with the umbilical cord still attached. “Sorry madam, we didn’t know what to do.” Quipped another male police officer. Without another word, she quickly grabs one of the police officers cardigan and pulls out a string. She then ties two knots on the umbilical cord and rushes out, in the twinkle of an eye, she rushes back in with a tiny stick in hand. She uses the stick to cut the umbilical cord as the police officers stare at the ‘operation’ in shock. She then picks up the baby who is now crying loudly. “What happened?” she asks the police officers as she tries to calm the baby. “We were on our usual patrol around the slum, when we heard a baby’s cry coming from a heap of rubbish. When we looked closer, we found the baby in the plastic bag and we rushed here”. Well, this was the true story of how baby Jack was found. Jack, now one year old now lives with the woman who picked her up from the police station – Mary. In Mary’s house in Kawangware, Jack has found about 5 brothers and 26 sisters. Mary runs the Mary-Faith home, where she receives children from different walks of life and gives them a home. “Some were found by the police, some from the hospital and a number rescued from different kinds of abuses” she explains. “The oldest child I have is now in form one, about 15 years of age” she adds. When Real People head office team heard about Mary-Faith, we decided to do something for them. We enquired about the children’s education and we were told that the children go to a nearby school in the slum, while two have recently joined secondary school. We at Real People visited the home and donated text books, exercise books, story books, stationery, school bags, clothes and plenty of foodstuff to the children. Keeping in line with our vision of ‘sustainably improving lives’ Real People found it best to contribute towards the education of these children so as to give them a better future. Real People also pledged to pay school fees for two of the children who are now in secondary school. With words of encouragement, our CEO – Daniel Ohonde, encouraged the children to work hard in school and give education their best shots. With hugs, smiles, song and dance. The children of Mary-Faith bid us goodbye and welcomed us to visit them again when the school closes for the holidays. We, will certainly go back because Real People are friends of Mary-Faith home.