BACKGROUND
Tone la Maji
Tone la Maji – a “Drop of Water” in Kiswahili - is a project wanted and sponsored by La Goccia, an Italian association based in Senago - Milano. It aims to assist the most vulnerable children from Kibera, the biggest of the Nairobi slums, which has an estimated total population of 800,000 people.
Tone la Maji is a rehabilitation Centre for boys and a sign of hope for all children in Kenya. Through this project, Koinonia Community and La Goccia aim to provide basic care for these very vulnerable children from Kibera.
The Centre is located in Nkaimurunya location, Ongata Rongai, in the Rift Valley Province of Kenya. It is situated on a 26,000 square metre plot near Nairobi, actually neighbouring Karen, which is possibly the most upper class suburb of Nairobi. The Centre is separated from Karen by the Mbagathi River, which also marks one of the boundaries of the plot.
The main economic activity of the surrounding area is stone quarrying, which has led to massive degradation of the environment and left huge tracts of land unsuitable for agriculture or construction. These derelict lands are a sharp contrast to the beautiful scenery of nearby Karen.
Construction work at the Tone la Maji Centre started in August 2004, and the first 40 children were admitted on March 12, 2005. Currently, the centre holds 54 resident boys and supports four others though its outreach program.
INTERVENTIONS
Tone la Maji is at the moment operating as a children rehabilitation program with a special focus on pedagogical activities and research. Scholars wishing to assist in developing a curriculum especially suited for children coming from difficult situations are welcome.
CHILDREN REHABILITATION PROGRAMME
Our primary concern is the Children Rehabilitation Programme, which aims to rehabilitate and educate children in difficult circumstances, especially those from the harsh Kibera slum. The ultimate goal is to successfully reintegrate the rehabilitated children back into their families and societies of origin.
Tone la Maji cares for 60 children, all male, who are assisted by a staff that offers them attention, care and love, and provides them with all their material needs. All the children attend nearby public schools.
The Centre pursues the following activities:
- Pre School activity: The first month after rescue from the streets, social workers and volunteers tutor the children, focusing on nurturing basic skills in writing, reading and improving their discipline. This process helps to equip the boys with relevant values and attitudes necessary for placement into the formal primary school context.
- Schooling Programme: Tone la Maji is working with three local Nairobi City Council schools that neighbour the Centre. These are Nkaimurunya, Nakeel and Ongata Rongai Primary Schools, where all children under our care receive formal schooling.
- Individual Counselling: The children are encouraged to enter a process of behavioural change. The rationale is to journey together with the boys in search of a new identity that promotes socially acceptable values and attitudes.
- Weekly group meetings: Social workers and volunteers meet the boys to discuss issues that affect them in their day-to-day life at the Centre, in school or in the immediate community. These meetings help create a strong bond between the children and the social workers, build trust and confidence alongside serving as peer counselling sessions for the boys.
The children get room to express their aspirations and fears, and the social workers explore various ways of handling these issues.
- Extra-curricular activities: These include sports, music and computer classes. There are six guitars at the disposal of the boys, and music teacher is currently teaching them how to play the instrument.
- Weekly “Boys’ Night”: Every Friday, the Centre holds a recreational evening in which the boys participate in such activities as soccer, indoor games, eating competitions and performances of music, shot skits and poetry. Children from the other Koinonia rehabilitation homes and from schools neighbouring Tone La Maji are often invited to make the gathering even more exciting.
- Duties and Responsibilities: Tone La Maji promotes work as a vital component in the process of rehabilitation and human formation. The duties allocated are commensurate with the ability of the boys, and pursue the ultimate goal of training them for future responsibility.
Tone la Maji has a seven-acre farm where vegetables such as kales, tomatoes and onions are grown, and six dairy cows are kept. As part of their formation for future responsibility in life, the boys assist the Centre’s farmhands especially during weekends.
- Spiritual care: This is practiced every mealtime, and at night in the chapel before recline. Every Sunday, the boys go to church to join other Christians in the celebration of mass. Catechism as part of spiritual nourishment is meant to encourage children to receive baptism. This is voluntary and depends on the interest of the individual child.
- Extra tuition: Social workers and volunteers extra offer this service to assist “slow learners” and non-readers to catch up on their school lessons and improve on their literacy skills.
- Home visits: Where possible, relatives and guardians of the children are traced and informed of the progress of their boys. The aim of these home visits is to foster a working relationship that will facilitate the ultimate reintegration of the children into their families of origin.
Organization.
The formation staff includes three social workers and in-house parents, a project coordinator and an administrator.