ANNUAL BIRTHDAY PARTY, WEMA CENTER, BAMBURI UTANGE - August 15, 2009
Voyager Beach Resort, CFC Stanbic Bank Mombasa and our Business Partners threw a birthday party to echo that every child has a right to an identity. Birthdays are a celebration of the day that one came into existence. With us throwing a party for the children of WEMA, we are celebrating their existence and reinforcing their individual identity!
Happy Birthday WEMA CHILDREN and MANY, MANY, MANY more!
Wema Centre was founded in 1993 in an effort to rehabilitate street children. It was started initially in Likoni for young street girls by Lucy Yinda, and by 1996 it housed 60 girls. The centre re-located to Bamburi Utange in 1997 and now has two centers’ in Mombasa and Thika town (for boys).
In addition to the two centre’s Wema Trust offers additional outreach programs outlined below:
1.Thika Rescue Centre – provides temporary shelter for 35 street boys and has a vibrant boy scouts movement
2. Ganjoni Rescue Centre – provides temporary shelter or 35 street boys with a vibrant acrobatic team and a soccer team. This centre is also a drop in center feeding 80-100 street boys daily.
3. Safina Program – a halfway house for former street girls who have graduated from the childcare section and are preparing to exit from the centre. Through this halfway house they are given information and life skills deemed necessary to survive outside the centre.
4. Bamburi – Mwemberegeza all the following projects are housed in the Wema Centre Bamburi location:
• Early childhood development
• Cookery school for at risk community youth
• Music school
• Computer school
• HIV/AIDS prevention project for youth – fully engaging youth in acrobatics and competitive soccer
• Remedial education for orphans and street children
The center along with its community outreach projects are home to approximately 200 orphan children between the ages of two to 18 year olds.
The party was held at the WEMA Center facility in Bamburi, where we received a lot of assistance from our suppliers who donated stationery as birthday presents for each child. Other partners like First Choice offered their staff and vehicles; the staff from Keen Kleeners set up the décor and our resident Voyager Beach Resorts photographer,Joshua volunteered his time to capture the day’s special memories.
The children, on their part entertained us with acrobatic performances, singing and dancing, after which the birthday cake was cut and the children received their birthday gifts.
