Macheo has been using the same office since 2006 and the amount of employees using the ofice has grown extensively in the last years.

The office space was becoming far too small for the amount of people working there and thus affecting privacy, which is much needed, for specific programs.  In the new situation we have four private rooms and two open offices, instead of two rooms and an open office space. The individual offices will be used by the Director,-Marnix, the accounts office-Simon and Julie, the children’s home social workers-Grace, Esther, Benson and Solomon, and finally the outreach-Joan and Faith. All the programs will get representation in every office. The rest of the employees will occupy the open offices.

The new office space will especially benefit the social workers. Grace shared with us the need for more privacy. There is now more room available to share information and have discussions on the children in a private setting. Another important fact is that this will give the children more confidence to visit the social workers office directly, without any worries on their privacy.In the past there were incidences where children would shy off.

We would like to thank everyone who made this possible for us. This will go a long way in improving the way things are done all for the future of Macheo Children’s Centre.  Some of other benefits, just to name a few, will be;

• Our daily planning will be easier as the new setting allows people from our different programs and projects to work closely together
• A better team spirit as working closely together will allow more interaction in better settings
• The work-flow will be much better since people working together are closely linked with each other
• There is now room for creativity and to brainstorming ideas
• There will be room for volunteers to work who come and share their experience and information with us

We are assured of a better 2012 where we move close into achieving our vision and our goals. Join us this year and share something we do with people around you.

One of the resolutions for 2012 is to feed 1,500,000 meals to needy children in our education program

The education program is beyond getting a meal a day. I have met countless children in the streets missing an opportunity to enjoy the free primary education, play with children their age, or maybe that they are too hungry to concentrate in school. It is an opportunity for a boy or a girl to get a balanced diet thus is in good health, for a child to play with other children, and opportunity to for a child to achieve his/ her dreams amidst all other challenges.

A lot has been put in place to make this program a success. It has it’s challenges and that is why this year there has been several meetings to ensure that all goes on smoothly through the year. We would like to appreciate our donors for their donation, the children, the school administration, and the cooks among others.

Just to share some of the preparation underway……….

There are several meetings which are aimed at making the foundation of this program this year even better. The preparations include; making note of performance indicators, the activities involved, chances and impact of risks that could occur and the control measures that could see us ensure the beneficiaries get a balanced meal. A new way of working with our suppliers with new forms introduced. And on the ground, an auditor who will visit all the schools at random and check whether or not the children are eating the right quantity. Having someone on the ground will see us work on many challenges or risks that could arise. There will also be a feedback form for the cooks to ensure that they are cooking the right amounts of meal, there is cooperation from the school administration.

We will benefit from savings made from energy-saving-jikos bought for the 14 schools that previously used too much firewood. This will also benefit the cooks who in the past had to cook with wood which was sometimes wet thus they inhaled a lot of smoke. The rural schools will also benefit from Bio-sand water filters that purify the water and the children can finally enjoy clean water in their schools.

The manager, Faith has been busy visiting the school to adjust the annual contracts while at the same time meeting the parents. The turn out, as faith has put it, was average for the four schools visited late this week. Since most of these parents have to work with a big number of them being casual labours who depend fully on what they earn during everyday day worked, we understood. She had a chance to speak to the parents and encourage them to contribute towards their children getting a balanced meal in school thus avoiding so many dangers the children would face if they were to leave the school to go and buy lunch or borrow from others.

To get more information on the education program, visit our website.

Our new year resolutions are:

• serve over 1,500,000 balanced meals to needy children;
• provide high-quality individual care to the 93 children depending on Macheo Children’s Home;
• assist 30 needy children, mostly girls, with sponsoring their education;
• have a lasting positive impact on more than 200 families through our family empowerment program;
• assist over 700 children in dealing with their trauma’s through our psychological health program;
• offer individual treatment, home-based care and mother-child healthcare to many needy families in Kiandutu slum;
• assist over 150 malnourished children with special meals and training for their caregivers;
• assist 2,000 girls with sanitary pads;
• deworm 30,000 needy children.

Macheo’s staff is ready for 2012. Together with our donors, volunteers and other well-wishers we hope to have the biggest possible impact on the children around us who need our help so much!

It was a deep breath of fulfillment yesterday, mostly for our 7 candidates who recently sat for their final Primary education exam (Kenya Certificate of Primary School) in the beginning of November.

Tension was high, fingers crossed and small secret prayers said; as they waited for the Honorable Minister of Education Sam Ongeri to release the exams in what seemed to be a very long speech for them. Harrison, Antony, Joseph and Samuel are among the four the candidates’ left behind in Macheo as the rest had left to celebrate their holiday. The four were left behind since they had just gone through the rite of passage (circumcised).

Harrison was the first in the office, patiently waiting to see his results but forced to wait by the slow internet connection and jamming of the website. He seemed anxious and confident at the same time, moving from one computer to another, from one aunt to another uncle trying to get everyone to check his results on the internet. When he finally got the results, he couldn’t help but laugh and shout with joy, everyone else in the office was shouting with joy as they all clapped.

To cut the long beautiful story short, our 7 candidates’ who are among the 775,820 national wide candidates’ performed very well. Harrison was the top candidate among those in Macheo with 355 marks, Joseph closely behind with 352 marks, Ann Wangui with 330 marks, Samuel with 316 marks, Antony with 307 marks, Millicent with 277 marks and finally Caroline with 122 marks; all out of a possible 500 marks.
There are 2 among our candidates’ I must say something about. Anthony went through the 8 year primary course in only 6 years. He had skip class 2 and in class 7, his age and the fact that he was bigger than other children being the major factors. This saw Macheo intervene and beg the school for him to move between classes something they do not normally allow. We are very proud of Antony who scored 307 marks out of 500 marks. The other one is Caroline who due to advanced age also had to skip some classes. She was not fully motivated to go through the entire 8 year course so she moved from class 5 to class 8 and still managed to get 122 marks out of 500 marks.
We now have to wait for the secondary schools admissions to know that kind of schools they will be admitted to. To all who have supported these children this far, we truly appreciate you. Thank you. We are sure that they will all get very good schools. We will keep you posted on their progress.