Impacting Community through holistic Transformatio… | Projects

 "The donor should find me moving, but not start me to move."

These are the words of Mum Margaret and Dad Oliver of Agape Hope Children Centre:-a registered ministry in Kenya, recognized as a safe place for the children.
This Learning Centre located in Kabiria, Nairobi has become a resource centre where community members visit to draw lessons.
 

The couple gladly reveal that over 50% of the Agape budget comes from self- sustaining initiatives run at the centre. These are largely from farm inputs and investments, a transport ministry, hosting of volunteers, animal husbandry chickens and vegetable farming on the less than acre piece of land that hosts the centre and schools.
 

“We are sharing knowledge and skills like diversifying farming. Instead of planting maize on an acre of land, one can do Sukuma wiki, poultry farming, rabbit keepingetc,” says Dad Oliver who is the director of the centre.
 

Though Oliver and Margaret registered there Centre in 2003, they were greatly thrilled to here of CMS-Africa’s wholistic transformation trainings. At 13 years of age, they enrolled to the VISION Conference organised by World Poverty Solution in partnership with CMS-Africa.
 

Background
Margaret and Oliver started off from Zimmerman feeding like 40 street children every Sunday after service. The couple’s initial place of operation was at Mukarara Primary School feeding street children every Saturday.
 

The feeding programme was accompanied with lots of games and the games led to a regular number of the street children who came to the weekly events.
Due to the growing numbers, they moved out of the school and rented a place next to the District Officer (DO's) place where they started a kindergarten, nursery and Pre-unit.
It was not long before they graduated to Primary School with classes one and two.
 

The 2007/2008, post-election violence was a game change for the couple as it came with its own merits and demerits.After PEV, the classes shot up to class eight due to the bulge in the number of children who remained behind needing education and care from Agape.The number of boys increased greatly after the Centre received 10 boys from Parklands Baptist Church.
 

In course of time, one of the girls who was a student at the school died and this led to the Agape Centre to also start a girls boarding.

In 2012, they moved to Waithaka where the Agape Hope Centre is located. They started to be involved in the Rescue and Rehabilitation of the street children yet another influx of children to the center.
In brief, the Primary school started off at 120 but currently range to 450.

Achievements to date

• Agape Hope Centre and Schools has grown from Primary to Secondary and now registered a vocational colleges. The children's home has also grown from 10 to 130.
• More than 100 children from the streets have been reintegrated into their families.
• These children who have had issues with their families like truancy, rebellion have been counseled and reintegrated into their families.
• The community has really accepted the vision of Agape Hope Centre. They support with food stuffs, clothes,
• The Centre has intensified income generating activities. They started off with goat raring but moved on to cows, chicken, rabbits, pigs.
• They also do farming: green vegetables, tomatoes cabbages among others.

Application of the VISION Conference Training

The green house is a result of the VISION Conference which served as an eye opener for Pastor Oliver.“Ihad the green house but it was just idle. When I attended the VISION Conference, I grasped the essence of growing in all the 4 areas of life,” says Pastor Oliver.
After the training he embarked on farming using the green house. Now the children are enjoying vegetables like spinach, managu, tomatoes.
Gerald Ngaruya from World Poverty Solution was greatly pleased to observe that Pastor Oliver is applying the knowledge gained from the VISION Conference in all aspects of his ministry.
 

• Farming yields fresh vegetables for the entire population at the centre.
• Recycling water from the school used irrigation.
• The children serve as locally available human capital.
• Centre serves as a referral for the community who come to see and learn new farming techniques.
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• The women are now saving money in a merry go round and have been introduced to another group in Karen.
• The merry go round for women is done weekly where the women contribute Ksh.350 per person and then one person is given.
• The women are put into groups of 10 and put into saving groups through the home banks.The money pooled together are loaned to women involved in business at a small interest.
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• Every member of the group have metallic domestic bank for their day to day savings
• The church has over 200 people every Sunday whom Pasto Oliver is imparting with wholistic transformation messages.
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Pastor Oliver is excited to be a Champion of Christ in the community and he is actively involving the Youth the wholistic Community transformation agendaas championed by CMS-Africa.“If I had undertaken the VISION Conferences earlier I would be far ahead of all my peers running children centres in Nairobi,” observes Dad Oliver.
From my own work and the teachings of Samaritan Strategy Africa, I can confirm that wholistic transformation is possible.

My desire is to inculcate this message in the children God has given unto me as a steward. I teach them all life skills including welding, farming, and irrigation at the centre.