Dear All,
We had hoped to produce a Riziki Newsletter last month but circumstances prevented it. Julius has been very busy overseeing building work and Liz has been managing the staff and children.
We have just received the latest information from Liz which we can share. We have been really impressed with the way all the staff and the children have worked together in recent weeks to keep everyone safe, enthusiastic, occupied and educated. Many of the children have written about how they have been affected and their response during lockdown, which has been much stricter than ours. Some of these will be included in another newsletter soon. The new photocopier is proving to be very valuable, producing written work for our studying children.
The official statistics for Covid 19 in Kenya at the time of writing are: Confirmed 30 065, Recovered 17 160, Deaths 482.
Liz wrote yesterday
Hi Ian and Diana,
We have all taken the afternoon today to sit and write to you. Find on WhatsApp all the children's letters and one from Hellen. I felt that I have written on their behalf too many times and it will be good to hear from them. So, I will cover the other areas.
FARM
As you are aware, we had planted a crop of beans; we harvested, cleaned them and we are still drying with the hopes of having them in the silos this week. We have been using the moisture meter to help us determine how much drying we need to do.
The farm has also managed to give us a steady supply of vegetables. We are currently enjoying butternut, green capsicum, sweet potatoes and coriander, as an addition to our regular vegetables of cabbage, kale and traditional vegetables - Managu and Kunde (African nightshade and cowpeas leaves). We are looking forward to a potato harvest in the next month. We also harvested about 130 bales of hay, bring our total to 360 bales, we are hoping for another harvest before the end of the year. We don't know how good it's going to be as the boys have been enjoying the freshly cut field to play football.
We have attempted millet and it is coming up well; this should help boost our supply of porridge flour.
We finally got the maize grinder and as soon as our previously ground supply of maize and porridge flour runs out, we will give it a go.
STAFF
We are so glad to have the current staff at Riziki. They have truly been remarkable during this period. They have adjusted easily and cooperated with a lot of the changes we have had to have, some of which has meant extra work on some periods. So, I will give the ladies a special mention today and the gentlemen in the next letter.
Elizabeth, who is our cook, has always been a true blessing, as you have witnessed. We can rely on her for lots of this at any time and she does it joyfully; lately she has been working closely with both the boys and girls assigned in the kitchen to help them learn food preparation and cooking, apart from the young ones majority in the house with her guidance can do basic food preparation and some are able to cook an entire meal. It has been particularly encouraging seeing the older boys getting involved in the kitchen and producing reasonably good meals.😁 The boys have also been perfecting their chapatti cooking skills, with her patient guidance and I think that is something you should look forward to when you come.
Hellen, our social worker, has also been great; I will credit her with the good beans harvest, approximately 8 bags (90 kg each). She really worked hard alongside the children during planting, weeding and harvesting, threshing and drying and it was great seeing her provide such solid leadership to the children and farm staff. The results were amazing.
Rachel, our cleaner, has been helping us make liquid detergent! As you are aware for a lot of the house cleaning we have been using liquid soap, but it turns out Rachel has the skill to make soap and so now all we do is buy raw material and Rachel together with some of the girls produce our supply of soap.😃 She has also been very valuable in the way she monitors the kids when they are outside. She is always out there making sure they are not getting up to any serious mischief. Knowing what every child is up to every second has been a serious challenge for us, and she has been a strict set of eyes out there 😁 and that has really helped.
As you know, they really don't have to do any of these things but they have understood the challenges of this period and truly stepped up. God bless them!
CHILDREN
I will not say much on this as I hope they will properly speak for themselves in their letters. (Some will be published in the near future)
We started an afternoon program that aims at building skill. We had a session with them to understand how they would like to spend their afternoons; the girls contributed the most to the long list with a lot of it out of our budget, so we started on what we could manage. This was art, dance and sports. We already had some the supplies in our possession so we were able to move immediately with these. However, we have run out of paper for drawing, our balls both football and basketball are in a poor state and so the only active session of the three is dance. We have been downloading dance tutorials and learning from those. The girls have been particularly happy with this. The boys are a bit left out at the moment.
I thought I should share the entire list with you on some of the things they pointed out to be of interest:
Knitting Football Crocheting Hair and makeup
Basketball Music (Keyboard and guitar) Craft
Art (sketching and painting, calligraphy - Precious and Ann are particularly good at this)
Computer games Bicycle riding Tie and dye
I have to abruptly end it here for today as we all have to move onto the next thing. But we will put another letter writing day in two weeks, as this has worked out so well today.
Asante and Keep safe
Liz
Here is the letter written by Hellen on behalf of the staff.
From Riziki Workers.
Hi, from us, here in Riziki. We are doing well, glory to God. Since the outbreak of Covi-19 the children have been home, the routine has changed but we all adjusted positively as we have had a smooth flow of events.
All of us, the workers, are glad we are still on duty despite the economic status all over the world due to this pandemic. We are very thankful for your support for these children and also to keep us on duty.
Though we can’t travel, especially for those who come fromfar like Hellen, Evans and Emmanuel, we have embraced this as our family and, for sure, we are all pleased to be part of Riziki.
Staying with the children since they came home for the pandemic has given us a chance to learn from them and also teach them some curriculum activities that they are learning very well.
On Sunday I do enjoy our service seing different children taking different roles in services; Richard, Dominic doing very well in preaching, I give teachings, Tabitha leading the praise and worship, while Neema, Grace and Mary doing the programming. Ooh, you are, for sure, missing.
Maximillian turned two years on 4th July and is very active, always wanting to catch up with Sharon in whatever she does.
Despite the many things the pandemic has affected, I can at least say it has given us a chance to know each other better. Throughout the week it is ever busy as we have to ensure they wake up on time so as not to have a hard time when the schools reopen. During the week we have studies, devotion and curriculum activities.
On behalf of all at Riziki, we thank you, our supporters, for your continued generosity. This is a time of great challenge and we are very moved by the way all involved with Riziki are pulling together to come through this difficult situation. Coping with the varied needs of so many young people is a great achievement for which we are very thankful.
Thank you for reading this newsletter.
Many Blessings, Ian & Diana
Please note: The Aenon Trust has a new email address. [email protected].