Lydia Oluoch is a Kenyan journalist who is passionate about writing life changing stories. She is a graduate of Journalism and Mass Communication from The University of Nairobi. She has a special interest in business, lifestyle and entertainment.
Formerly a sponsored child of MACODEP, she not only gives us an authentic insight into MACODEP's projects and their impact on the Kenyan society, but also reports on other local social projects and the people involved in them.
MACODEP CHILDREN'S HOME AND CENTER WHERE CHILDREN ARE CARED ABOUT NOT SIMPLY CARED FOR.
(author: Lydia Oluoch)
Home is where our story begins, it's the starting place of love, hope and dream. It is the only place where our heart can laugh without shyness and the heart's tears can dry at their own pace.
MACODEP Childrens Home and Center has been a home for children who came from various background; some do not have a safe or positive relationship with their primary care giver, some have been dispossessed of property and disinherited and others have lost family to violence and illness since 1999.
Since every child needs safety and security, to find his or her own identity and start his or her own citizenship, MACODEP Childrens Home has been stepping in as both a primary care giver and foster parent to orphans and vulnerable children in the slums of Kibera Nairobi Kenya.
Being founded in Kibera one of the biggest slums in Africa, where average life expectancy is 30 years of age, HIV infection rates are extremely high and are a large contributory factor in the number of orphans living in Kibera. Unemployment and low income from the employed has also led to only 40% of children in the area to attend school on any given day.
The children in the area usually lack the basic material needs that their families would supply such as food, security, shelter, clothing, schooling, access to quality health and medical services, parental love and the feeling of the belonging.
With the knowledge that most children taken into their Children's Home need more than just a place to feel at home, poor nutrition and diseases, they came up with the new project at Got Osimbo Siaya County Kenya that is done and currently running since 2022 ensuring that the children find the absolute care at MACODEP.
Now it's more than a treasure chest of living, with care givers who see what they are doing as a calling not just a job, with the love they put in action ensuring the kids are cared about not simply cared for.
The staff also goes beyond investing in the children to becoming their family and this is essential as it makes it a stable home.