Dear All, Greetings to you all from a warm and sunny Kenya. We have been to Eldoret for twelve days to visit Testimony Faith Homes and Neema Children’s Home, followed by more than two weeks at Riziki. Yesterday we arrived at the coast. We were greeted with real warmth and were amazed by our welcome.
It is now time to write our latest Riziki Newsletter. My office today is on the beach at Diani, south of Mombasa. The views are very simple! During the time we have been in Kenya, everyone has been very friendly and helpful. Now for the news and pictures from Riziki. It was wonderful to be able to stay at Riziki itself, rather than to have to travel on a twenty-minute commute each day. We were able to stay with Liz in the new Director’s House. The house is a major asset for Riziki, enabling the Director to live on site and providing excellent accommodation for visitors. We thank the donors for their generosity in providing this facility. Since we last visited Riziki, a new chicken house has been built and occupied and rabbit hutches have been constructed – rabbits are now ready for consumption. These projects further our aim for sustainability. While staying with Liz, we were able to see various birds while we sat on her balcony, ibis, egrets, heron, guinea fowl and many others with the western wall of the Great Rift Valley in the background. The children were enthusiastic in their pursuit of guinea fowl for the pot but were far too noisy to have success. The last group of current secondary school students (three girls and two boys) have now reached form four and will complete their secondary education at the end of this year. Government regulations require that when our young people reach the age of eighteen they must leave Riziki, unless they have not completed secondary education, in which case they leave when that stage of education is complete. Anyone wishing to continue into higher education must wait for several months before they can start their courses but cannot live at Riziki while they try to obtain places. This may mean they have to live with their official guardians. We offer to fund an appropriate course of study to any member of the Riziki family who wishes to continue studies. Some of our family have accepted this offer, others have chosen to cut their links with Riziki and set out on their own. News of some of the older students:- Dominic, who lives nearby with his grandmother came to visit us. He has applied to study spatial engineering at Nairobi University, having gained excellent grades in his form four exams. Neema has already started on a two year social work course in Nakuru; Anne is training in Nakuru to be a hairdresser; Precious is at The Multi Media University in Nairobi studying Procurement and Logistics; Faith is employed in office work in a local supermarket. Alex, Acholla and Dominic were pleased to receive a new football which was immediately in use. We were pleased to visit Blessed Mercy School, not far from Riziki where our youngest child, Grace, is a pupil. We also visited half-term parent’s day at Petal’s School where seven of our children attend. The grounds here are beautiful and our first impressions of the school and staff were good. The five Form Four students came home for a long weekend half term while we were at Riziki. Five of our younger children have returned to live with their guardians but we are continuing to fund their education We had two groups of local visitors:- Four staff from ABSA bank came to discuss their offer to plant extra trees in the compound. This is an initiative from the staff of the bank who give up their lunches to partner with the causes they choose to be involved with. Three church members from the nearby community of Kayanet brought gifts of household provisions from the community to bless the children. One of our older boys, Emmanuel, came from that community. We hope such links can be maintained in the future.
Further comments We now have sufficient funds to install guttering's on both the cow shed and the chicken house to harvest rain water. This year we would like to start a biogas digester to provide free power for cooking.
Prayer concerns:- We continue to give thanks for the dedication of our staff who work so hard for the welfare of the children in our care, both in the house and the shamba.
We pray for Liz in her continued search for a suitable new social worker, who carries much of the responsibility for ensuring the Riziki children flourish. We hope she will be interviewing candidates later this month.
We pray for Julius as he continues his dialysis and as he manages the finances of Riziki. The challenge continues to be to find a reliable dialysis clinic.
Many blessings, Ian & Diana
A reminder of a date for your diary,
Saturday, 11th May 2024, 2.30pm till 5.30pm
Venue: Lindley Methodist Church,Huddersfield and Nationally via Zoom.
CONCERT AND FUNDRAISING FOR RIZIKI Sponsored by Gaggia UK