 Kwa kwa kwa kakawezi beraumiki haowa kamaimiku hisha, Hao kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa kehapia maika kunaimiki maika kumita Kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa maikiku kaia poda. Tadoku keja naibasa, nakuru kwadoorisiv naikia Naikia kwa kwa kwa nésitengu kwa kwa mabaga We had so much that was going on because we were enclosed in one place and I grew up being brought up by my sister. That was not my real home. So all kind of people were in that particular place. We grew up in a metropolitan environment. We had all type of people, we had the rich, the poor and the middle class. Actually in the estate it was divided such that we have got estates for those who aren't literal. We have got for the middle class and we've got for the rich. So as for me I grew up in the middle class but I would always see the other people who would share their houses divided in curtains. For us at least would own a single room as a family and the rich they want a whole mansion for themselves. So it was such a good environment as per them but when I grew up I came to realize that we have got needy people in the society who need our help. Growing up Mary's experience in life aroused in her the urge to transform not only her life but also of those around her. Hence the motivation behind community power Kenya. Being closed up in one place would see people suffering because young girls would get pregnant because in those divided homes with curtains the other families goes to continuing on with life. The children are around there. So you would find children exposed too much, too much. In this really when I grew up I came to realize that this is a problem already and I got to understand when I came out to the other world I got to understand how life is even in the slum because this was just an example of a slum but in a more modern way. But life in the slums was just the same because the houses are too close, people are sharing homes, children are exposed and this really touched my heart. That's when I decided when I grew up I would like to give back to the community and that's how community power Kenya was born. I grew up desiring to transform my life from where I am to the next level until to a position where you can enjoy life and find that at least I'm not struggling even to it. I can fight for my rights, I know who I am I can help somebody else to come out of the situation they are in. First in Meru County the organization is geared towards fostering positive change in the society. Community power Kenya was registered in 2012 as a non-government organization, a charitable, it's a Christian based organization. It's basically it's non-profit making to assist and to help the poor child. In this we want to see a community that has been transformed our core value is to see a self-sustainable individuals, self-sustained communities and how do we come up with this? We say that even better off I can hold somebody's hand and get them to where I am. If they are not able to reach where I am they can be somewhere where we can communicate in a better position than where I found them. As community power Kenya plays a role in poverty eradication there are a number of programs they undertake. In Meru County we've been working with the Ministry of Education we've been working with the Ministry of Health through the Ministry of Health we work in HIV and AIDS testing and counseling and under the Ministry of Education we do the offence in vulnerable children support we also do we are counseling so say co-social support we do the rights of passage for boys and girls we do for them seminars and counseling sessions at the same time. We also do sanitary distribution for the girl child we do a program under the OCC that's Operation Christmas Child under the Samaritan Pass whereby we get donations in terms of gifts and gift to these children that they have got everything that a kid needs to go to school then we talk about advocacy and creating awareness whereby we fight for the rights of the girl child we fight nowadays we also fight for the rights of a boy child because boy child was a little bit neglected but we stand for them we found that these boys are also being molested they are being harassed in the community in the education program once we identify a child mostly these children will be out of maybe parents who are HIV positive among the people who are living with HIV the parents may be drunkards or involved in drugs and they become more irresponsible to a level that they may not be able to feed their own even themselves we find them most of the times they are in the town centers drunk since morning till evening and some of these children have been born out of that kind of an environment so the children being born in a vulnerable situation and they grow up in a very vulnerable situation they find themselves in that situation so when you find such a case by God's grace they get to go to school you find them but they are not even able to have males in school some of them will be fed by their teachers some of them will go without food because they in upper classes the teacher expects to have food for them at least for the lower classes if a school doesn't have feeding program it will always be hard for these kids to even have food Mary and her counterparts have a criteria that is used in selecting the beneficiaries we work very closely with the ministry of education and through this we are able to be allocated different schools where maybe they in the most vulnerable regions and when we go to these schools who can bear with me that the teachers are always with these children they know their homes, they know their parents they know their needs and they know a lot so what happens we go through the class teachers they identify the needy cases in a class and we pick it from there we visit the children in their homes we take their life profile we take their background how they live then from there we can now classify from the most vulnerable to vulnerable and the ones that can at least make managed life while many attribute the success to donor funding community power Kenya attributes it to local funding this organization it's locally funded purely from friends and people who want to see the community arise and I would say thank you to the Mary and community because they have really supported us we borrowed money from them and people, self-individuals have really come up strongly to her sisters whenever we have a program we want to do you give somebody a phone call and they will come in and give their resources so I would say that proudly because we have been able whatever we have been able to achieve is through local funding aside from partners whom they work closely with the organization also relies on a handful of expertise we have been working with partners who have come in as friends who said that I want to see a life being changed I want to put a smile on a face of a child which has been very powerful because the moment you see that child you give them a gift you take them to school see their results improving that child becomes brighter and the moment you visit a home and the parent becomes hopeful we work in all thematic constituency and some sub counties within the constituency we've worked in places called Chawre at Chawre primary we have got a file of kids that we support we work with DB primary school within the municipality we work with God Sheffard academy that's also a sister sponsored school within the municipality sofa the organization boss of a number of achievements sofa we have been able to achieve we are not yet at 90 but we are above 50% of what we desired to see we've been able to assist about 500 families within a span of 5 the last 5 years we have been able to support around 1000 children in schools some of them have gone up to high school others are still in primary school that's a great milestone for us we've targeted more but with time and little hitches we've been able to successfully talk about 1000 children go through enrollment go through school see them stick to school for whole year two and three until we are able to see their performance improve in this household 500 household what I can say is that 3 quarter of them have been restrained they have come back to somewhere where you can say that this parent can take full responsibility of their children it has not been easy to achieve that but it has taken a little bit of cancelling sessions we've come in through psychosocial support we've given them meals for days we've been able to bring them together and let them speak out their problems there might be challenges in most initiatives but they should never be a reason for failure the challenges are there the urge to quit is high especially when you find some of us who started together they are going off the way they feel that they are giving us too much but one thing that has kept us going is the transformed life when you remember of a case that you started with and that life was transformed you say you cannot just give it up yet you still have to move forward and seeing those children smile that's the biggest bit of it when you go to those children and they appreciate you they are smiling, they are happy you get to a home where you would go and the children are all over they don't know what to do they have no clothes and now these children they know how to dress themselves they can cook for themselves you say you cannot just give it up along the way we always look for a person to replace them other challenges that we have faced maybe as you say is full time members because we work with volunteers and having to employ people who are working throughout sometimes it has been a challenge for us which now we are planning for the next five years because our last five years we will be coming to an end actually ended in October this year we are targeting on how we can be able to have some feel full time working community workers who will really go to the ground and follow some of those issues on daily basis whether socially, economically or politically let's all join hands in empowering the community for a brighter future we are gifted in different frame children have been gifted differentry and everyone can help there is something that you can do that can help the little you have can be multiplied by the power of many because when we come together we can be able to feel a basket it doesn't take a single hand to feel a basket but many hands do it what I would want to encourage everyone that learn to be a giver learn to love what you do and to always pay back