Campaign Update
12 months ago
Media Voices for Children has been working on a long project since Summer 2023 to raise funding for the Kenyan Schoolhouse campaign. Our givebutter page has been dedicated to securing funds for sponsoring children and food programs, and large projects like school bathroom projects, ambulances, and medical supplies.
We are a tiny organization but we have committed to sending $150,000 per year to Kenya to help children and their families. We have nearly met this goal at about 99% funds reached and only need about $1739 to meet our fundraising goal.
Urgently, we are asking for any generosity towards our campaign and organization. Your donations not only help Kenyan children but provide us with additional funding to keep our operations going. Please consider donating to our givebutter campaign for the Kenyan Schoolhouse or visit our website at https://www.mediavoicesforchildren.org/ to help us stop child labor.
Campaign Update
12 months ago
A part of our fight for kenyan children has been rooted in working with amazing people working within the communities to spread knowledge on child rights and violations. One such person is Bernard Morara––a child protection specialist for the ANPPCAN in Kenya.
His work as a specialist focuses on programme conception, initiation, implementation, research, communications and advocacy in the children’s sector, having received his master’s in development communication from the University of Nairobi and worked in the media, government, and civil society.
Truly though, his work at the ANPPCAN is where he shines. He has implemented a program titled “Strengthening the Protection of Child from Sexual Exploitation” targeting key areas like Nairobi. Currently he is working in “Advancing the Right of Children to Advocate for their Rights, especially the Rights of Orphans and Vulnerable Children” centered in counties like Kajiado, Busia, and Homa Bay.
On a national level he coordinates a “National Technical Working Group on Sexual Exploitation of Children in Kenya” and “the Nairobi Child Protection Team” (NCPT). Both of these focus on providing a network of child protection professionals working to streamline response and referral systems for cases of child abuse and neglect in Nairobi.
People like Bernard give us insight into the deep rooted issues involving child labor and exploitation within Kenya. That is why our work is so focused on partnering with ANPCCAN as a means to sponsor and collaborate with projects important to solving the root issues of poverty and suffering in Kenya. Please consider helpers like Bernard Morara and join their cause by donating to our givebutter campaign for the Kenyan Schoolhouse or visit our website at https://www.mediavoicesforchildren.org/ to change Kenyan children’s lives.
Campaign Update
about 1 year ago
Years ago while making "The Same Heart" an extremely wealthy donor told me I was being suckered by helping children, they were stealing from me and my community “ I gave this about 30 seconds of thought and responded that I was proud to have a bleeding heart
This article on the day I leave for Kenya was frankly overwhelming… a very Kenyan journalist wrote this. I can see their heart bleeding too. Please check out this article by a dear friend Okech Kendo published by Kenyan newspaper known as "The Star."
Campaign Update
about 1 year ago
Last week, our director Len Morris traveled to Kenya again, prepared to check on the progress of our projects. Toilet construction is underway at schools in need of girl’s restrooms, dispensaries are being updated with more medical supplies and ambulances, and our kenyan schoolhouse children are attending school.
His last visit was in November 2022 when we shot most of our upcoming documentary “Vipi Watoto - How are the Children?” which explores the current issues with child labor in Kenya. That journey was to not only film, but to also uncover the aid children and rural communities need to survive.
The conditions that November were worse than previous years, marking a downward curve due to drought, covid-19, and the AIDS epidemic that increased poverty in the country more and more. We saw more children in child labor or orphaned, more communities struggling to find water and supplies, and more suffering under the weight.
These discoveries became the endeavors towards our recent actions with the Kenyan Schoolhouse campaign, guiding us to directly sponsor 200 children and new programs that help these communities. During our director’s visit, we hope to check up on these children and programs, while also discovering new children and ways to help Kenya. Please think of the Kenyan child and donate to our givebutter campaign for the Kenyan Schoolhouse so that lives can be changed.
Campaign Update
about 1 year ago
In 1963 and 2008, Primary and Secondary education in Kenya was made free with secondary school admittance contingent on passing a national exam. While the Kenyan Government’s laws may make it seem that every child has the equal opportunity to be educated that is still far from the case.
It is commonplace for public schools to charge school fees, especially at the schools we encountered in some of the poorest areas. Their parents are unable to cope with the charges due to growing economic distress, sending their children to work instead of school.
Children being pulled for school forever or for long periods of time threatens their long term educational career. Key classes are missed that teach important material for national exams, making secondary education an impossible reach for economic reasons.
Keeping children in schools becomes more important as the grades move on, making providing school fees key. Our goal is to sponsor as many children as we can, paying for not only school fees but food and supplies for their families. Please consider the educational needs of the Kenyan child, and donate to our givebutter campaign for the Kenyan Schoolhouse and visit our website to learn how you can help children in need.
Campaign Update
about 1 year ago
What if we had the same heart for all children, not just our own? That was the question in our heads as we began production on our documentary “The Same Heart” which focuses on children living in poverty.
Released in 2015, the film grapples with the fact that nearly one billion children across the world live in poverty, looking at the systematic means that keep them in dire circumstances. That number has only worsened in recent years with the Covid-19 pandemic and climate disasters wreaking havoc on people’s lives.
Year after year, development assistance funding trickles in too little, too late, providing little respite for those affected. We question again and again how these mechanisms meant to help could be changed––that pledges be uplifted and emergency appeals taken seriously by the entire world community.
Most of all, what if we had the same heart for all children, not just our own?
Our Same Heart documentary lays out the difficulties of fighting against poverty that gives way to child labor systems. We are dealing with terrible circumstances brought by steep odds, but attempt to change one child at a time. Please consider viewing our documentary “the Same Heart” at https://www.mediavoicesforchildren.org/ and donating to our current givebutter page for the Kenyan Schoolhouse.
Campaign Update
about 1 year ago
When we sponsor a child, we sponsor their entire family, providing services and aid that ensure the best possible life for parents and their children. One of these services is providing monthly food supply drop offs to ensure no family has to resort to desperate means to survive.
Orchestrated by our partner and ANPPCAN representative, Sophie Omutanyi, families are provided with basic necessities like food or supplies like laundry detergent during the drop off. These are essential for families struggling to make ends meet, changing their lives by allowing them to focus on taking care of themselves instead of worrying about food.
Media Voices for Children is able to make services like this possible through your repeated support. Your donations go to changing Kenyan families' lives, providing the best foundation for a successful educational career. Please think of the Kenyan child and donate to the Kenyan Schoolhouse Campaign through our givebutter page or on our website.
Campaign Update
about 1 year ago
Damaris is a Kenyan Schoolhouse campaign student we bring up often, as she is a lovely example of what great achievements Kenyan children can accomplish when given the chance. Coming from one of the poorest slums in Nairobi, she succeeded attending college and graduating with a degree in education.
When she began her teaching career, many of her students were shocked that she came from Kibera, knowing that so few children that grow up in slums have the chance to graduate high school. Damaris would laugh, talking about how shocked they always were, but would say that she wanted to do more to help children that grew up like her.
So, she decided to apply to graduate school––getting accepted into the University of Connecticut in their School of Social Work. With a long journey ahead, she is preparing however she can, working with the Legacy center as a counselor.
There Damaris works with many children we have sponsored, including the children rescued from the Dandora dumpsite. These children are traumatized by the harsh labor they had to endure on the dumpsite. Yet they find themselves empowered by a young woman who understands the horrors of child labor and poverty.
In sponsoring youth like Damaris, we not only hope to provide a better future for their own lives but for other people's lives. Graduating highschool and college serves not only as a testament of strength, but a testament of what is possible for their siblings or community––creating hope that it will always get better.
Damaris is typical of the many students that plan to use their education to help other children growing up in the same environment, representing a grassroots movement towards change. However, support is still needed as she needs help with living costs, including a new computer and winter clothes when she attends college in Connecticut. Please consider donating to our givebutter campaign for the Kenyan Schoolhouse and change the life of entire communities one education at a time.
