Why I do this

Here in Kenya, being an orphan is one thing. Being an orphan teenage girl is another.

I am sure you can imagine why, but let me put the pieces together for you.

A life of poverty can change people’s morals. Down in the slums, or even in the villages of Kenya, there seems to be a whole different set of rules. Men take whomever they want. Orphaned girls have no one to stick up for them. And hunger can also cause even the purest of souls to do ‘what is needed’ in order to eat.… I’m sure you can fill in the blanks and get my point. Life for an orphan girl is tough. Already, before coming here, one of our teens was raped when she was just 4 years old. She has herpes and must deal with this all the time.

Another of our Kenyan teens lost her mother to the ‘man takes all in the village mentality.’ Her mother was murdered because she refused to marry the murderer after her husband died. The guy got angry, and stabbed her to death in her home. My orphan-no-more woke up to find her mother’s body.

So the reason why I took in these girls is not necessarily to provide them with a wonderful education. Although they go to school now, it’s a perk. But it’s so we can protect them from the backward world we live in. They had no advocate before moving here, no one to tuck them under their wing, and they were being picked off one by one like baby chicks without a mother hen.

After their parents died, the girls were a burden to their remaining relatives. Some girls were viewed as cursed because of lack of understanding of how the parents died. One of our orphans-no-more was being sold by her grandma to a man in Mombasa to be his house worker. She was only 8 years old at the time.

So why do I have a house full of girls? Because they need me.

~Kate