Become a Rafiki Family Sponsor today
By becoming a sponsor you will be making a lifetime difference to some of the most vulnerable children.
The support for our children is lifelong and complex. It also can change from moment to moment. We employ and continually train the right staff to work with traumatized young people. It is so much more than a traditional home or orphanage. This comes at a cost and we are therefore aware that we need to not ‘cap’ these opportunities for our children’s emotional healing. Because of this we do not have a set number of sponsors for each child. Instead our sponsors are sponsoring our family as a whole and will receive a yearly photo of their child. We know you will understand this need and thank you so much for supporting our amazing children.
Sponsorship will cost you $50AUD per month and your valued donation will assist us in supporting ALL of our children with all expenses across our entire charity.
How do I pay?
You can pay via Credit Card, Direct Debit or PayPal. All donations are tax deductible within Australia.
Where will my money go?
As you can imagine having 68 children in our care at the Rafiki houses plus over 88 children living out of Rafiki, we have lots of ongoing costs. Not only the day to day expenses but we also continue to make sure all of our staff are therapeutically trained so they can care for our children in the best way possible. Some of our programs and other essentials are listed below, your donation will ensure we can continue to provide for Rafiki Family
- The first and of utmost importance to these girls and boys is a loving home environment with caring staff that provide a high standard of therapeutic care, this includes individual key workers for each child.
- Participation in attachment play programs to assist with overcoming their emotional trauma
- Attendance at School with therapeutically trained teachers
- Specialised education around sexual abuse
- Integration back to their families and communities
- Education for staff in the schools about supporting sexually abused girls and boys
- Legal and emotional support through court processes
- Regular and ongoing monitoring when in the community to ensure safety
- Three nourishing meals a day
- Clothing and essential necessities
- Specialised and ongoing health care
- Excursions into the local community to ensure the girls and boys are integrated back into their own culture
- Car servicing, petrol, general wear and tear
- Hospital or medical care for the children. Some of our girls have substantial injuries and need specialist medical treatment. This can be very costly but essential to their recovery
- Additional court fees when taking the accused to court. Some of the girls have to travel backwards and forwards to rural areas and Nairobi, depending where the crime was committed. This can sometimes take the girls and their key worker away from Rafiki Mwema overnight.
- Training for families and communities for when our children return home.
- On-going training for our staff. We pride ourselves on the extent of understanding and knowledge our staff have and we ensure they have regular refresher days
- Staff supervision. Some of our girls manage their trauma by repeating their stories to our staff – sometimes several times a day at the beginning of their process. Others play out what happened to them in their sessions with their key workers. It is essential they have access to independent supervision to help them deal with the stories they are told. This helps keep them emotionally able to support the children.
- Furniture, white goods and other necessary items to make our house a comfortable, nurturing and safe environment.
- With 68 traumatised children living with us you can imagine the amount of bedding and mattresses that get spoilt. We have mattress protectors but some of our girls and boys, because of injury and trauma, wet their beds many times a night when they first come to us. We want our girls and boys to feel loved and cherished, so having hygienic bedding is one small way we can help them achieve this
- Additional clothing for these children, including clean underwear
- Bedding and towels
- Our guard dogs! Anything for the animals is expensive in Kenya – we have six brilliant dogs, P.K. and Malika but if they get sick – they are very expensive! They keep our girls and boys safe at night and all the locals know we have fierce German Shepherds. Our ‘fierce’ dogs are also a key part of the girls’ recovery. Patting, grooming and walking the dogs really helps to engage some of our hard to reach children when they first arrive – pet therapy in practice!
…. And that is just to name a few…..
Our Vital programs need you!
we currently have a number of very successful programs running and some that are just taking off. But as with everything this costs money…..
Outreach team
The most essential part of the rehabilitation program is to assist our children in returning home when there is a safe environment and they are ready. This can be very costly as many of our children live far. We need a full time team of 6 staff members and reliable vehicles to monitor their progress and ensure on going safety. Again this is another essential program your donation will ensure its ongoing success
The importance of training for our staff
As you know our program to rehabilitate these children and rebuild their lives is based on providing specialised therapy. We provide ongoing training to our local staff to ensure they are well equipped to support these children. You can imagine some of the trauma is very confronting and our staff need intensive support especially in the early months to ensure they have the chance to emotionally heal. Our employment program also contributes to building a sustainalbe local community
Medical Fees
Many of our children have experienced severe neglect and malnutrition before they come to us and many come directly from hospital having undergone all sorts or procedures and treatments, some of which will require ongoing appointments. Some have TB, Hepatitis B and HIV which increases the medical costs and the need for special diets. Your donation will contribute to these costs.
Job Opportunities
Our support does not start and end at the front door. We want to assist these children in becoming proud self-sufficient adults. One opportunity at the moment is apprenticeships. Because the boys in the Rafiki Family have come from the streets many colleges and apprenticeships are not opened to them, so where possible we would like to pay for their training and increase their job opportunities.
We hope once we have built on these programs to introduce new ones that will assist our family ever further thanks to your help.
What will I receive as a Rafiki Family Sponsor?
In addition to the overwhelming feeling you get when making a difference to all of these children’s lives, Rafiki Family Sponsors will receive an initial welcome to the family pack in the mail. This will include an image of ‘your child’ and a short history on them. You will also receive information on of our Rafiki family and how much your contribution means.
You will get to see the difference your sponsorship donations make via an email update every 4 months on how all of the children at Rafiki are doing, and how the Rafiki Family Sponsor donations have assisted the entire family and all of our programs. Along with your email update you will receive photos of our progress.
Once a year we will update our website with up to date photos of our children on a password protected page so you can see the progress of your child.
You are welcome to send letters, stickers, and pictures at any time to our children – they love receiving mail! Click here for more information and address details.
We commit to being totally transparent as to where our funds go so you know that every penny is building a new life for each child.