The Foundation conducted a donation exercise at the District Officer’s compound in Kayole on the 21st of April, 2020. This was in a bid to help alleviate the tough economic times brought about by Covid-19 and its containment efforts. The beneficiaries were drawn from a section of the many needy families in Kayole Community, and mainly from the Kayole Reformers Football Club, a group immersed at the heart of the most needy. They exist to rescue kids from crime, drugs, early prostitution and other ills experienced in the slum areas not only because of the lack of material needs, but also from a lack of hope. This is because without the prospects of basic education, they feel their future is bleak.
Reformers Club aspire to carry out this noble task by engaging the kids in sports i.e. football to keep them off the streets but also to equip them with a skill that could turn a new leaf in their lives. They also use this opportunity to offer much needed mentorship.
Our partnership with them is along these lines. We appreciate that without material needs, then a person’s mental well-being is compromised due to the stress and hopelessness that comes with it. We also appreciate the need to offer mentorship to these kids and provide role models whom the kids can look up to outside of their context, to see that with hard work and discipline, anyone can make it. We invite them to our Mental Health talks to equip them with skills to strengthen their Mental Health.
Our greatest joy will be to see these kids enjoy a brighter future as upstanding members of the community who offer hope to others as well as to lose none of them to suicide due to hopelessness.
The donation package had a couple of goodies consisting of 2 packets of maize flour, one packet of
wheat flour, cereals such as green grams, beans and rice, cooking oil, salt, tea, sugar etc.
The exercise began at 9 am and was well coordinated from start to end. The process run smoothly.
As we were drawing to the end of the exercise, KTN, a local popular news station, picked up on our story and requested to feature us and the events being conducted on their station. We acquiesced, and a representative from the Foundation was interviewed. They also interviewed a beneficiary of the
Foundation’s charity activities as well as the local administration. The story was then aired on the 4pm news.
We ended on a high note, both the Foundation and the beneficiaries.
The Reformers Club coach and team then took us on a small tour of Kayole so as to visit the beneficiaries of the JGKM foundation, both from the day’s
activities as well as previous charity drives. We saw the great need of the people living in Kayole – Families of up to 7 people living in single rooms. Kids who had finished their primary school studies but couldn’t raise enough funds to join High School. We also came across a single mother of three who had ran out of paraffin oil which she uses in her cooking and could not afford a fresh supply hence her and her children had gone hungry since morning.
As an act of desperation, she had sent her son to sell her shoes to passers-by with the hopes that she could raise 50 shillings to at least give her children breakfast as her son had resorted to crying from the hunger. He was unsuccessful unfortunately, and this had therefore left her in a tough place. She was one of the beneficiaries of the food that had been given out
on this particular day, which she considered a saving grace for her and her family.
These and many other stories, including that of a boy who couldn’t afford to go to school and whom Dr. Sam, our chairman, had sponsored and was consequently able to study and score straight A’s as well as tutor the neighbourhood kids, is the reason why we do what we do. In the past year, Reformers Club recorded zero loses to crime and drugs of the youth which is supported by the Foundation in various ways. Further, through JGKM Foundation and individual support, 130 vulnerable households received support on this particular day, with each household housing 4-5 individuals on average.
We are indeed blessed to be able to make such an impact, and we are grateful to all who partner with us to make this possible. We are grateful to our trustees for believing in the vision and investing their time and resources in it. We are also grateful to our founder’s, Catherine and Mike Kariuki, for their
continued support in all the Foundation’s endeavours. To God be the glory.
JGKMfoundation its our key pillar and without their help we could never acheived what we have achieved as organization both on and off the pitch,2019 we won 3 major trophies and we became the 1st team in the history of kayole to produce two teams and play in mysa championship finals,equally its for the 1st time in our history since 2013 to never lose a youth in crime nor production,we used to lose like 30 youths annually.Thank Major Mike,Dr Sam,Kariuki’s family and Jgkm foundation for your continous support God bless you.