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My husband sister and I went to Kenya over the summer and lived with an orphanage. We had the opportunity to raise money before we went and help the orphanage out by building desks for the kids, purchasing new text books and learning materials, building a chicken coupe and buying 50 chickens to help them raise their own money. We also set up a food supply for them to help prevent hunger, but there are 56 orphans and they went through that supply so quickly! Our goal is to raise money here in the states, purchase the orphanage so that they will not be in jeopardy of getting evicted and help the orphanage become self sustaining. Right now they are so reliant on donations from others for their survival. We want to educate them in becoming self reliant and once we raise enough funds to get them going I know they will be uplifted and eager to learn and work hard to maintain their business. Throughout the blog you will find posts on our experiences while there as well as updated information on the orphanage and what we are doing to help. We hope to start our own NGO, but that process may take up to a year, so in the meantime we are looking to partner up with an organization that is willing to help us! Then we can start raising funds and get to work!
For more information on the organization we were a part of while in Kenya please visit
www.fadhili.org

Neemaland Kings and Queens Palace Orphanage

We are pleased to introduce Neemaland Queens and Kings Palace Children’s Orphanage to you. In the year 2000, Sister Grace Omundi took in her first orphan; a seven month old baby girl who had been abandoned on the street, and named her a queen. Just a few years before, Grace and her three children were out on the streets themselves and have experienced the dangers and hardships that come from living a street life. Through hard work and perseverance, Grace was not only able to make a living and provide a better life for her family but was also able to help the street children and orphans that she encountered daily.

In 1996, she began a street children feeding program and for five years she fed hundreds of children. Between the years 2000 – 2004, Grace identified some orphans and vulnerable street children and began gathering them twice a week at the Satellite police station where she provided them with meals and religious counseling. In the year 2004, Grace took three orphans into her two-bedroom home made of mabati. She now had four orphans and her three children to care and provide for. Soon after they moved into a four bedroom house which enabled her to take in fifteen more little girls and change their status from orphans to that of queens. Through the support of a volunteer from the United States, they were able to move yet again into a larger self-contained house that had eight bedrooms. The property also houses another eight rooms, separate from the main house, which serve as the children’s sleeping quarters and classrooms. Grace felt so blessed to have a larger home for her family and the orphans to live that she felt inspired to take in more orphaned children and provide a home for them and a better life. In the span of six months she acquired twenty-six more boys and girls making a total of fifty Kings and Queens. She then officially named the orphanage Neemaland Queens and Kings Palace and strives to ensure that the children feel loved, special, and at home. The Queens and Kings are provided with food, clothes, a bed in which to sleep, and an education.

Grace and her family are working towards turning this orphanage into a true palace where the children have desks and chairs to sit at during class, qualified teachers to educate their minds, better sleeping facilities so there is no need for each bed to be shared between four children, a variety of foods to ensure that they are getting enough of the required nutrients to improve and maintain their health, healthcare so they can grow up strong and able, and counseling to help them work through their emotional problems caused by their tragic and undeserving pasts.

The challenges faced by Neemaland include:

· purchasing and therefore securing their current housing facility
-They are struggling to pay the rent and are facing possible eviction from their current home if they cannot soon buy the property. The landowner has already put the house up for sale and if they cannot afford to buy the property they will have no choice but to leave, and the Queens and Kings will have no place to live.
· lack of food

· clothing
-They lack warm clothes for the cooler months and many catch as a result of this.
· shoes

· school uniforms
-Many of the children do not even have a uniform for school.
· sleeping accommodations
-There are four children per bed.

· school desks
-There are no school desks or chairs for the children to work at during class which means that they sit on the cold concrete floor during class. If they had chairs and desks they would be better able to focus on the material being taught and perform better in school.

· school materials
-Many do not have pens or pencils. There is only one textbook per subject per classroom and 6-8 students must share one textbook between them. There is only one chalkboard eraser that is shared between 5 classrooms.

We humbly request and plead for any aid that can be given in the areas listed above.

Mission Statement:

To identify vulnerable children, give them a home, provide them with daily physical, spiritual, and emotional needs, set a Godly example, and help them to recognize their potential creating hope for a brighter future.

Vision:

To realize a bright future for orphans and vulnerable children by providing food, clothing, housing, education, counseling, and training toward becoming self-sufficient.

Objectives:

· Provide adequate nutrition, clothing, health care, love, and excellent education to
vulnerable children

· Create awareness of our situation and acquire more resources

· Provide guidance, counseling, and spiritual support

· Raise funds to pay staff; especially trained teachers so as to ensure quality and
consistency in their education

· Maintain the current site and support the orphanage staff

Goals:

· Provide the children with adequate food, education, and love

· Purchase the home so that we can build onto it, which will create more housing
facilities to accommodate more orphans and more classrooms. This will also enable us
to create a private school that will accommodate outside children; a small school fee
will be charged to outside children attending the school, which will help us to become
more self-sufficient.

· Pay teachers and other staff

· Establish a business that will provide a steady income to pay utilities

· Investigate the feasibility of a chicken or goat program and other programs that help us
work towards self-sufficiency.


NEEMALAND PROPERTY INFORMATION

Rent
Payable quarterly:
70,000 Per Month
210,000 Shillings
3,000 Total USD

Property
Buying the house, the land its on and the other structures:
7,500,000 Shillings
107,150 USD