Author: bodha

Sponsorship

Child Sponsorship Programme

Children who are sponsored are shown to stay in school longer and are more likely to become employed, and even leaders in their communities. It isn’t just about money – although in many cases it is the difference between eating one day or not: it is about feeling that they matter, that someone cares for them and loves them.

How we help

Children that are sponsored are given the gift of hope, and of a future.

The ongoing commitment of Compassion CBO to improving the lives of those living in desperate poverty ensures that the children in the greatest of need are reached and supported. The most in-need children are identified and given a place at The Greener Life School. Our partnership has allowed us to create a Child Sponsorship Programme. The children that are identified as most in need of sponsorship support are linked, through The Janna Foundation, with one sponsor only, in order to allow a very personal and encouraging relationship to be cultivated.

We encourage sponsors to write to their sponsored child as often as possible, and send them photos of their sponsored child each month. They also have the opportunity to send a monetary gift (should they wish) for birthdays and/or Christmas. A member of the Compassion CBO team will purchase something for the child, on the sponsor’s behalf, and the sponsor will then receive a photo of the child and the gift.

Partnering with Compassion CBO, an education will is provided for sponsored children at The Greener Life School – the most essential element to breaking the cycle of poverty.

When a child is first sponsored, a medical insurance card is purchased. This will enable them, and their family, to be treated at a clinic or hospital and have access to medication. We learnt that a medical insurance card was essential when one of the toddlers in our care was burnt on his face and (a month later) his baby sister was almost killed in a violent attack. Very few clinics and hospitals will treat without payment – even children. We knew we had to include this in our sponsorship package.

The Child Sponsorship Programme costs £25 a month. In addition to the education at the The Greener Life School for the sponsored child, the monthly payment for the medical insurance card will be paid, and some food for the child and their family will also be provided, as so many of our children regularly go hungry and search for food on the street and in rubbish bins.

If £25 a month is more than you can afford, why not consider getting together with a friend to pay £12.50 each? Or get in touch with us to see if we can pair you up with someone. To become part of the Child Sponsorship family please contact us.

Reach us at:

Email: info@janna.org.uk

Phone: 07717 501202

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FGM

Anti-FGM Advocacy & Education

Despite being illegal in Kenya since 2011, 21 per cent of girls and women aged 15 to 50 have been subjected to Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). It is mostly carried out on young girls between the ages of 6 and 15.

It causes severe pain and potentially death. Severe bleeding, problems urinating, cysts, infections, complications in childbirth, increased risk of newborn deaths, and long-term psychological problems are part and parcel of this dangerous, traumatic and barbaric practice.

How we help

We support Compassion CBO who work on the ground with local groups and within the community to advocate the rights of girls and to help end FGM. Seminars are run at the school, in informal settlements in Nairobi and in remote villages. The 5 day seminars cost around £750 (2020) and are open to boys and girls. Compassion CBO advocates the sexual and reproductive health rights of women, as well as sensitising men and boys about the rights of women and girls.

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Education

Children’s Education

Primary education is now compulsory and is funded by the government but the reality is that a family is expected to pay for water, books, uniform, the school cook, sometimes a desk and even the teachers’ salaries, excluding many families from being able to afford to send their children to school.

UNICEF has reported that over a million Kenyan children are not in school. With little to no state welfare system a good education is valued, and seen as a way out of poverty.

For many people in the slums of Nairobi, the cost of sending children to primary school is beyond their financial means.

How we help

We support Compassion CBO who provide primary school education at the Compassion CBO Children’s Centre (known locally as The Greener Life School). They help these children up to class 6 and then arrange for them to join a government school. The school is currently based in a church hall since the diocese tore down the school. They are currently fundraising to buy containers to use as classrooms and looking for land to rent on which to permanently base the school. Compassion CBO ensure that every child is fed, and educated in line with the Kenyan National Curriculum. They are also looking to support the children as they leave the Greener Life School and go on to higher education.

Currently there are ten teachers, three of whom hold certificates specifically in Early Childhood Development Education. The school opens its doors from 6:45am to 5:00pm and takes both girls and boys from Githogoro, Huruma, and other surroundings slums within Nairobi City. The population of the school stand at 150 and keeps growing every day.

Since 2005, Compassion CBO has enabled 1250 vulnerable children to gain access to education.

The children sponsored through The Janna Foundation attend The Greener Life School as part of the Child Sponsorship programme. 

Family Support

Family Support Project

It’s hard to know the exact numbers of children without homes. It’s likely to be in the tens of thousands in Nairobi alone. Over 100,000 women all over Kenya work in prostitution, leaving many of their children without homes or without parental support.

How we help

Restoring the family unit, providing a home, a better line of work, and pastoral support can restore dignity and create pathways to a hopeful future.

Together with Compassion CBO, we work with families using a 6-month plan: we support them in finding work (or a new form of employment if their current one is not productive or they are not in employment), advising and providing access to family-planning, assisting with financial costs of rent and food, offering counselling, and giving them encouragement and belief in themselves for their future. We try to link the Child Sponsorship Programme with the Family Support Project as these families are so in need. By the end of the 6 months the family will be in a better position to support themselves.

Sadly, many adults have not been educated and therefore are unable to get a well-paid job. Very often the salary is so limited that it only covers rent, and not food. The mother might go into prostitution to make money and leave her children, leaving them without a home and on the street. The mother may misuse alcohol in order to blank out the pain of life and become unable to care for her children and unable to work and make money. Without money for rent and food many families simply go hungry. It is often the case that a child will still need to be sponsored after the 6-month period, to ensure that sufficient money is coming in to enable the child, and their family, to eat.

Many women have had children when they were only a child themselves; some have children that they don’t know of their whereabouts – perhaps because they have turned to alcohol misuse and have been unable to care for them; many women have been victims of violence and abuse, beaten by men throughout their life; children are often from different fathers; mother’s sometimes leave their children with another family member if they have a child out of wedlock, and move on if they then marry. Therefore, it is critical that we work alongside these women, to educate and support them, and offer counselling where we are able.

Very often families become separated: this could be due to a mother entering into prostitution as she feels there is no other way to make money, a parent misusing alcohol and being unable to support their family, or a parent dying, leaving a child (or children) without any adult support. We bring families back together that have been parted, we keep families together that are struggling, and we support families with their individual circumstances and difficulties.

Many of our children do not have permanent homes and some live on the street. By supporting families with housing, food and family life these young children will no longer need to sleep on the street, will not feel the pain of hunger, and will no longer miss out on a productive and positive family life. We also relieve the financial burden from families who have an elderly family member raising young children due to death of the children’s parents, allowing them the rest that they deserve.

Our Story

During ‘Lockdown 2020’ Hannah and her two sons wanted to do something to help their friend, Evanson Njeru in Kenya. Hannah had met Evanson some 5 years earlier when she and a friend set up a charity, having both recently sponsored children in Kenya through Compassion International. They came across Evanson by chance (finding his website instead of the Kenyan branch of Compassion International) and he helped them set up the charity. (Subsequent circumstances led to the charity not being sustainable.) Evanson was the director of a charity and the headteacher of a school he set up in one of Nairobi’s slums.

Hannah and the boys knew that life was tough in the slum but knew that in Kenya during the Covid-19 crisis it was going to be even harder. They desperately wanted to help their friend. The boys decided to sell homemade lemonade and cookies, and some homemade keyring and bookmarks, at a (socially-distanced!) stall outside the house, hoping that walkers in the hills nearby and local friends would come and support them.

Family charity sale

Five days later Evanson was able to deliver a bag of food and soap to 16 of the most in-need children that were on his school roll (currently closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic).

Janet and Jamespic here of food bags

One of these children was a 10 year old girl. She had no home and lived outside, with a couple of plastic bags as a roof. She had an old, thin, dirty mattress and a broken plastic chair to her name. And she was raising her 18 month old baby brother… Her mother was unable to raise her children due to very sad circumstances, was an alcoholic and was currently working as a prostitute. The little girl’s kindly neighbours allowed her to use their stove when she had food and they often cared for the baby when she went to school. She was instantly taken into Hannah’s heart and she knew that this was the beginning of a new journey.

‘a little step’ grey pic here

She began investigating how she might be able to help further, researching the internet and having discussions with various close friends. She was reluctant to begin a charity on her own and wanted to see what alternative options there were.

Meanwhile, Evanson and Hannah set about working towards a plan to rehabilitate the little girl’s mother so that they could become a family again. They came up with a 6 month plan, by which time mum would be better able to provide for herself and her family.

A house was rented (a 3m x 3m tin shanty in the slum), and Hannah began sponsoring the little girl so that they could afford food. She and Evanson helped mum to find alternative work by helping her set up her own business; they provided her with family planning assistance and arranged some counselling; and funds were procured from Hannah’s generous friends and family to set up the house with some essential items.

They provided a second delivery of food and soap to the same 16 most in-need children. They also arranged a sponsorship for a 10 year old orphan girl being raised by her grandmother (the sponsor subsequently became a trustee of the charity), and also gave her some clothes and a new mattress.

After a profound phone conversation with a trusted friend (and a CEO of an established charity), entailing a metaphorical kick up the bum, a recital of The Starfish story, some encouragement and some love, Hannah began the task of registering a UK charity.

Starfish story pic here

Exactly one month later a sofa seat was delivered to the new house, to join the table, mattress, bed frame, gas stove, clothes, food, utensils and toys that had been provided throughout that month. Their house had become a home. The little girl’s mother had worked so hard during this month and Hannah’s heart was filled with joy to see her nurturing the baby she so loved, and to see her daughter playing as any 10 year old should.

The very next day Hannah had the news that they had been accepted by the Charity Commission and The Janna Foundation was now officially registered as a charity.

Home Sweet Home

Hannah Brook

Hannah Brook – Founder & CEO

I was raised in a small rural community in Cornwall, the daughter of a vicar and a teacher. I studied music at university in London, lived in the south for a bit over a decade, and have now lived in the north of England for over a decade.

In 2014 I began sponsoring a little boy in Nairobi, Kenya, after hearing about the work of Compassion UK, and a couple of months later we sponsored another little boy – the same age as my eldest son. (A year later a sponsored girl also became part of the family.) I had ‘met’ a wonderful man called Evanson Njeru who ran a charity in Nairobi, Compassion CBO (unrelated to Compassion International and Compassion UK). He had set up a school in one of its slums (he was the headmaster) and also ran numerous other projects as part of the charity. I soon realised that he was the most selfless man I had ever met, which remains the case to this day.

I remained in touch with Evanson over the years and during Lockdown 2020 my boys and I wanted to help him help the children in his school, during what was a most difficult period. Little did I know the path that I was now on. Within five weeks The Janna Foundation was born – named in honour of the little girl who was my inspiration: God’s gracious gift. I met all three of The Janna Foundation’s original trustees in church, soon after arriving up north in 2013. They are all very loving, compassionate and wise individuals and I am so grateful to them for coming on board this incredible journey that God has set us on. We have been lucky enough to have been joined by another trustee recently: a friend who has been a supporter of the foundation since the very beginning.

I am committed to ‘seeing the one’ – as Mother Teresa said – and feel incredibly blessed that I have been welcomed into the lives and hearts of some very special children and families in Kenya.

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Meet the Team

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Andy Perry

Africa and, in particular, Kenya has formed a backdrop to my married life, where various carvings and other items can be found around our own home and the homes of my in-laws. The reason for this is that my wife and her siblings lived with their parents in Kenya for around 14 years during the 1960/70s. My wife’s parents were missionaries, selling Christian literature in east Kenya over that time. In addition we currently have two sponsored children in Uganda and Rwanda respectively so the opportunity to make even stronger connections with Kenya in particular and to help individuals and families to both be blessed and in turn become a blessing to others was something not to missed.

I have four step-children from my marriage and a granddaughter who came along in 2018. I’m a long standing Civil Servant and worked for DWP in various managerial roles. I have also led worship in a number of different settings since around 1995 (including on a number of mission trips to Romania) and it was through worship that I met Hannah, the driving force behind The Janna Foundation. I’m very much looking forward to working with Hannah and the other trustees and am excited for what the the future may hold, as the charity looks to support families living in Kenya in difficult circumstances and provide what we would consider the basics of life.

Jean Burston

I was born in a small village in Saddleworth which had a strong community spirit where people looked out for one another. Church was an important part of my life, as it is now, and, as a teenager, I became a Sunday School teacher. This made me realise that I really had a heart for working with children which led me to choose a career in teaching and eventually I became a Headteacher. My other passion was music and I met my husband in a musical show and we now have three grown up children – two boys and a girl.

In 2010 we went for a holiday to South Africa and visited a township there which had a profound impact on me. As a family we decided to support three children through Compassion and I also support a Granny through the Winnie Mombasa charity. Consequently, I am delighted and privileged to be part of the Janna Foundation to support its valuable work in Kenya.

Hannah

I was raised in a small rural community in Cornwall, the daughter of a vicar and a teacher. I studied music at university in London, met my husband whilst living in the south (treading the boards in a musical show, as one of our trustees also did!), and moved to the north of Derbyshire in 2013 with our two sons.

In 2014 I began sponsoring a little boy in Nairobi, Kenya after hearing about the work of Compassion UK, and a couple of months later I sponsored another little boy – the same age as my eldest son. I ‘met’ a wonderful man called Evanson Njeru who runs a charity, Compassion CBO, and is the head master of a school in one of Nairobi’s slums, as well as running numerous other projects there. I soon realised that he was the most selfless man I had ever met, which remains the case to this day.

A year later, I began sponsoring a little girl also. I remained in touch with Evanson over the years and during Lockdown 2020 my boys and I wanted to help him help the children in his school, during what was a most difficult period. Little did I know the path that I was now on. Within 5 weeks The Janna Foundation was born – named in honour of the little girl who was my inspiration (who I now also sponsor – sorry hubby!). I met all three of the trustees at the church that I soon took as my family on arriving up north in 2013. They are all very loving, compassionate and wise individuals and I am so grateful to them for coming on board this incredible journey that God has set us on. I am committed to ’seeing the one’ – as Mother Teresa said – and feel incredibly blessed that I have been welcomed into the lives and hearts of some very special children and families in Kenya.

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Hannah Laxton – Founder & CEO

I was raised in a small rural community in Cornwall, the daughter of a vicar and a teacher. I studied music at university in London, met my husband whilst living in the south (treading the boards in a musical show, as one of our trustees also did!), and moved to the north of Derbyshire in 2013 with our two sons.

In 2014 we began sponsoring a little boy in Nairobi, Kenya, after hearing about the work of Compassion UK, and a couple of months later we sponsored another little boy – the same age as our eldest son. (A year later a sponsored girl also became part of our family.) I had ‘met’ a wonderful man called Evanson Njeru who ran a charity in Nairobi, Compassion CBO (unrelated to Compassion International and Compassion UK). He had set up a school in one of its slums (he was the headmaster) and also ran numerous other projects as part of the charity. I soon realised that he was the most selfless man I had ever met, which remains the case to this day.

I remained in touch with Evanson over the years and during Lockdown 2020 my boys and I wanted to help him help the children in his school, during what was a most difficult period. Little did I know the path that I was now on. Within 5 weeks The Janna Foundation was born – named in honour of the little girl who was my inspiration: God’s gracious gift. (We now sponsor her too.) I met all three of The Janna Foundations’s trustees at the church that I soon took as my family on arriving up north in 2013. They are all very loving, compassionate and wise individuals and I am so grateful to them for coming on board this incredible journey that God has set us on. I am committed to ’seeing the one’ – as Mother Teresa said – and feel incredibly blessed that I have been welcomed into the lives and hearts of some very special children and families in Kenya.

Evanson Njeru – Compassion CBO Director

June 2002 is the time I came to the slum. I was working as missionary in Western part of Kenya but when I came to slum found the condition of children I resigned and decided to see what I can do for them. In 2005 I started Compassion CBO School and gave it a name Greener Life. Priscillah joined me as a volunteer teacher and we married same year. In 2006 I invited Compassion International and they partnered with the church I was attending then. I worked for them 3 years as a project member. I lived in the slum until 2011. We lived in a 2 metres by 2 metres shanty. We now live 3 kilometers away. I go to the slum every day.

Marie Beasley – Trustee

I have been involved in mission work from being 16 years old when I moved with my family from quiet Essex to a busy inner estate in Manchester, to work as part of a team on a pioneering youth work project. Consequently, I went on to become a qualified youth worker and I met my husband whilst working as part of this team.

When I was in my early twenties, I went out to Johannesburg in South Africa to work with an organisation called Door of Hope who look after abandoned babies and support them to be adopted. This experience had a profound effect on me and gave me a heart for Africa. When I came back I got married to my husband (who I had met in Manchester) and we then returned to South Africa as newlyweds for six months to work with a church.

We now have four boys!! As a family we sponsor a child with Compassion UK and now one child with The Janna Foundation. I love what this organisation stands for; valuing ‘the one’ not just the many, that ‘one’ life counts and is valuable.

Evanson Njeru

Evanson Njeru – Compassion CBO Director

June 2002 is the time I came to the slum. I was working as missionary in Western part of Kenya but when I came to slum found the condition of children I resigned and decided to see what I can do for them.

In 2005 I started Compassion CBO School and gave it a name Greener Life. Priscillah joined me as a volunteer teacher and we married same year.

In 2006 I invited Compassion International and they partnered with the church I was attending then. I worked for them 3 years as a project member. I lived in the slum until 2011. We lived in a 2 metres by 2 metres shanty.

We now live 3 kilometers away. I go to the slum every day.

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Jean Burston

Jean Burston – Trustee

I was born in a small village in Saddleworth which had a strong community spirit where people looked out for one another. Church was an important part of my life, as it is now, and, as a teenager, I became a Sunday School teacher. This made me realise that I really had a heart for working with children which led me to choose a career in teaching and eventually I became a Headteacher. My other passion was music and I met my husband in a musical show and we now have three grown up children – two boys and a girl.

In 2010 we went for a holiday to South Africa and visited a township there which had a profound impact on me. As a family we decided to support three children through Compassion and I also support a Granny through the Winnie Mombasa charity. Consequently, I am delighted and privileged to be part of the Janna Foundation to support its valuable work in Kenya.

Read More

Andy Perry

Andy Perry – Trustee

Africa and, in particular, Kenya has formed a backdrop to my married life, where various carvings and other items can be found around our own home and the homes of my in-laws. The reason for this is that my wife and her siblings lived with their parents in Kenya for around 14 years during the 1960/70s. My wife’s parents were missionaries, selling Christian literature in east Kenya over that time. In addition we currently have two sponsored children in Uganda and Rwanda respectively so the opportunity to make even stronger connections with Kenya in particular and to help individuals and families to both be blessed and in turn become a blessing to others was something not to missed.

I have four step-children from my marriage and a granddaughter who came along in 2018. I’m a long standing Civil Servant and worked for DWP in various managerial roles. I have also led worship in a number of different settings since around 1995 (including on a number of mission trips to Romania) and it was through worship that I met Hannah, the driving force behind The Janna Foundation. I’m very much looking forward to working with Hannah and the other trustees and am excited for what the the future may hold, as the charity looks to support families living in Kenya in difficult circumstances and provide what we would consider the basics of life.

Read More