Saints Orphanage International Orphans Centre, is based in the Kenyan capital city of Nairobi, It is situated on the Eastlands part of Nairobi at the heart of the sprawling Kayole estate in Embakasi Division. The few all-weather roads that cut through the estate are very narrow and difficult to navigate. With the teeming population of this sprawling estate and the absence of pedestrian footpaths, driving in this part of the world is not for the faint-hearted.
  

The Orphans Centre is surrounded by numerous slum dwellings, which include Soweto, Kwa Ngurue, Kibarage, Mworoto, Matopeni and Humama. These areas are characterized by inadequate infrastructure, squalid housing structures, abject poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, prevalence of severe HIV/AIDS and other diseases, crime, and family violence.
The hardest-hit and most-affected by these conditions are the children, especially those orphaned through HIV/AIDS and crime. The Centre takes care of children who have been orphaned by providing to the children free education, housing accommodation, food, clothing, healthcare, teaching of individual skills as well as emotional and spiritual support.  Counseling is an integral aspect of the services provided at the Centre, especially to traumatized children whose parents have succumbed to HIV/AIDS, or who have a history of physical and/or sexual abuse.
  

The Director of the Centre, Pastor David Oyaro, has seen it all. Countless are the times he has attended burials of parents of children now under his care. These disadvantaged children, some of whom are disabled, see Pastor Oyaro’s care and evangelism as their only hope. In turn, he does not disappoint; for he is man of faith who gladly takes care of His children.
 

Saints Orphanage International and Education Centre was registered by the Kenyan government in 2006 under the Ministry of Children, Gender, Sports, Culture and Social Services. The Centre has local Kenyan volunteer workers who include teachers, counselors and cooks for the children.  The orphaned children, sometimes numbering up to 80, are fed and educated at the Centre. The Centre has 8 class-rooms. each measuring six-by-ten feet, for various grades (from Kindergarten to primary school) and the children sleep in  our newly constructed home along Kangundo road, though not complete.

Message from the orphanage director, Pastor Oyaro:
 During my time of evangelism in the community, I came face to face with the ravages of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The plight of children whose parents had succumbed to the deadly virus was too much for me to bear. So, I decided to take action.
 

In the early days, I would assist the families with the counseling, the Word of God and prayers to give hope to the families affected with HIV/AIDS.  I could only afford to provide for some of the basic needs of the children in a family during that time of service in the community.
 

Soon, parents who were infected with HIV/AIDS started dying, leaving their children with nobody to take care of them. Most of these children had already dropped out of school to look after their ailing parents. Even after the government started offering free education in primary schools, it was very difficult for the ailing parents to afford uniforms and other school requirements for their children, which the government could not provide.
 

After the parents died, the children could not go back to school since they had to take care of their siblings. Hungry and helpless, many went to the streets to pillage in garbage sites, in desperate search of food. Others were kicked out of their parents’ rented houses, leaving them with no choice but to hit the streets.
 

Unwilling to accept the unfolding scenario, I (Pastor David) started looking for a shelter for the children where they could be housed and fed.  I also decided to set up a school for these children. With no money, but a big faith in God, I purchased land and started construction. I was able to rally the community to support the orphanage project with food, clothing, building materials etc. At times the people in the surrounding communities would not donate enough for the children to eat, since most of those people live on less than a dollar a day. Although, during difficult days, God has always been at hand to provide.
 

With people volunteering to teach the children, formal learning was gradually introduced at the Centre. This is despite the fact that we don’t have desks, stationery or school uniforms for them. The need however, is still very high, as a number of the children continue to sit on the bare floor during lessons. Also during the night we have problems of sufficient beddings and a nice place for the children to sleep.

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