Education & Support for Vulnerable Children, Kenya

Throughout term breaks, the GVI Mombasa team provides support to our local partners to ensure students are active and supervised while school is closed. The students work so hard throughout the school term, so holiday periods are a great opportunity to  have some fun and indulge in some trips.

Around 80 students of varying ages turned up each day for the holiday programme run by GVI and Precious Vision .We were able to take 30 children at a time on different outings to ensure that all the children got a chance to go. The first activity involved a trip to a local botanical and zoological park - Haller Park. The children spent a couple of hours walking through the park with a local guide who gave them information about the animals and the ecosystems as they went around.  The animals that they got to see include hippos, crocodiles, antelope and snakes. But, the main attraction was definitely the feeding of the giraffes!  The volunteers were on hand to help the children overcome their nerves about feeding the animals from their hands. By the end of the trip all of the students had conquered their fear and managed to feed a giraffe, (even if there was a lot of screaming!) Over the next few days we had outings to the beach and the smaller children got to go to the butterfly farm – the highlight being a play area consisting of swings and slides.

The highlight for the older students was The Mombasa Agricultural Show. This takes place yearly in the month of August at the Mombasa Show Ground in Nyali and is always visited by the president. There were hundreds of tents and stalls, most of the government departments had a stand showing how they have evolved over the years. One of the main attractions that the children loved was the “culture tent “displaying all the different traditional artifacts tribes make for varying celebrations and lifestyles. The students also got to sample “western” games such as video arcades and basketball games, and a (not so politically correct) “freak show” featuring “The shortest women in the world” a “Mermaid” and a “floating head” (a man under a table with his head sticking out).

One of the great things about the holiday program supported by GVI volunteers is that it exposes the students from slum areas to activities they would likely not otherwise experience. It is rather ironic that in a country so rich in wildlife, that most people living in a slum will never experience a safari park due to financial restraints. GVI volunteers taking students to trips such as Haller Park provides a wonderful opportunity to give the kids a safari experience or a cultural experience they would not otherwise be able to enjoy.