Wilfred (Freddy) Kiama Ntawa - Age 6

JOHN NEWMAN MISSION COMMUNITY                        

ADOPTED GRADE SCHOOL CHILD

Freddy is the youngest of 5 children.  The mother is a landless, homeless women who has no support from her husband who is no longer present for the mother and the children.  Besides caring for Josephine, Johnson, Jusper, Elosy, and Freddy, she takes care of her sister’s two children, so a total of 7.

The mother suffers from a variety of ailments which we have been helping her get treatment for, including some physical ailments involving her bones and joints.

Freddy will enter Grade 2 in January.  He’s a bright inquisitive boy undaunted by the family challenges of frequent changes as they move from one squatter area to the other living in stick and mud shelters.  He sociable and keenly interested in school as evidenced from his year in baby class, pre-unit and Grade 1.  We put him into school free until we could find a sponsor for him, because at least there he could eat, get away from the monotony of playing all day around their mud house, and begin to get his education which will hopefully help him rise up from the poverty he is being brought up in.  The family survives from day to day begging food and never knowing where their next food is coming from.  When they can’t get any, they just don’t eat that day. 

I came to know the mother (Sarah) and Freddy in an unusual way----someone rushed into my office one day to inform me there was a lady lying outside in a ditch close to the mission in great pain and hardly able to breathe.  I rushed her at top speed to the hospital and within minutes of arriving there Freddy was born. 

Sarah is seen here in 2008 in process of building herself a house for the family.  They have lived in this house the past 2 plus years, but now the squatter area is being reapportioned and they have to leave and start again to build a new house. 

Here Sarah, with one of her sons, is digging a latrine near her house.  They later erected a stick and branches structure around the hole to allow for privacy.  Freddy is seen here with his mother at about age 3 when she was attending our sewing school.  We’ve taught her sewing skills in our Earn-As-You-Learn school and she does make some efforts to use those skills making clothes and mending for people, although she gets very few customers.

Your sponsorship is giving Freddy schooling, uniform, shoes and clothes, food and medical care, plus is helping the family with simple needs.

The final  picture of Freddy at age 6, was taken today, December 16^th, 2010, when he came to get new shoes for Christmas and some food.  I was a bit shocked when he turned up with sores on his face.  He was burned when his sister was cooking something with oil and the oil splattered.  Unfortunately, accidental burns are very common here.