About the Cause
Poor health and nutrition negatively affect children’s school attendance and ability to learn. We implement school feeding programs that look for alternative ways to ensure sustainable supply of nutritious foods to school children and young people in urban and marginalized areas.
In addition, contaminated water and poor sanitation are big factors that result in the death of children worldwide. In our programs, we always include what is called WASH which means Water, Sanitation & Hygiene. This is done through the design and construction of child-friendly and gender sensitive facilities for sanitation, such as latrines and hand-washing stations. We also provide clean water supply by building water wells and raise awareness about the importance of sanitation and hygiene.
My Story
I am the mother of an amazing 10-year-old boy with various neurological difficulties. My son currently lives in Nairobi, Kenya with my mother, his grandmother, while I live in Dubai, trying my best to earn enough to pay his medical bills. My son, Yahya, suffered a major stroke, caused by his sickle cell anemia, 6 years ago. In these six years we have experienced, first hand, the trials of taking care of children with special needs in Kenya. Medical costs are restrictive and difficult for the average low to middle income families to sustain long term. Medicines are extremely expensive (and sometimes not available). Therapy is costly and finding a well-qualified and dedicated one is hard and most of these children require this at least 3 times a week. Then the hardest part is finding someone who can take care of our kids while we try to earn some money. After 6 years of going through this and a few years of interacting with other parents through social media, I realise many of us have the same problems and I realise that if I find it expensive yet both my husband and I earned a steady income for a number of years, the toll it takes on our finances is hard. Worse still if it’s a single-income family with other children who also need to be taken care of. The intention is to create a safe space, called Young Neuro Warriors, for these parents and their children. Having seen how detrimental it was for my son not to have therapy during the peak of the pandemic, I can only empathise