OUR PROJECT 2011-2014






















We have now completed the building of the Mary Immaculate Residential Home for street boys. There are currently 71 street boys being cared for in the Home where they are given a bed, proper washing facilities and a skills based education .In consultation with the Sisters of Mercy working on the ground in Mukuru St Michaels has now entered a new phase in our MMM Project.

The Sisters of Mercy have been involved in the work of education in the Mukuru slums since 1985. The cost of sending children to school was high before the advent of free primary education in January 2003.Not many families in the slums could afford this luxury so children were sent to the streets to sell groundnuts or to get money for food by any means possible. There are now four primary schools under the auspices of the Mercy Sisters with 4,264 children ranging in age from 6-15 years. The school system in Kenya is very exam orientated. This is difficult for the children from the slums because of lack of facilities and stimulation at home. However the Mercy Sisters have been trying to introduce Child-Centred primary education where the emphasis is on the individual child, building self esteem.

However there were no secondary schools in the Mukuru slums and so recently the Sisters have developed a strategic plan focusing on secondary education over the next 5 years.

Consequently a new Secondary school has been established, the first ever in the slums, and in honour of our working partnership with the Sisters in Nairobi they have named it St Michaels Secondary School. At present the students are being taught in temporary accommodation and classrooms that are not fit for purpose and without proper toilet facilities. We intend over the next three years to commit ourselves to raising £15,000 each year in order to help facilitate the building of proper classrooms and toilet facilities. As you can see from the photos work has already begun on some of the new facilities in the school.



Our Project 2006-2009

Following the visit of four St. Michael’s teachers in June 2007, St.Michael’s has become the main sponsor for the building of a replacement orphanage for streetboys at the Mary Immaculate Centre, which is part of the Mukuru Project area. The project will run for three years and the target for funding is £60,000. St. Michael’s is committed to £20,000 fund raising each year for the next three years.

Street boys are usually teenage boys who have been orphaned by Aids or who have been abandoned by their families and now live on the streets of Nairobi. Many of them are involved in drug abuse with addiction to glue sniffing being a particular problem. On the streets they face great dangers. The Mary Immaculate Centre is a place of refuge for these boys. At the Centre they receive accommodation, food, support to deal with addiction issues and skills training to make them employable. They are rehabilitated in many different ways. For many of the boys it is the only safe, supportive and secure base they will ever know.

At present because of the limitations on space, the Centre can offer accommodation to only twenty street boys. They live in very basic accommodation - a shed made from sheets of corrugated tin. The huts have very few facilities. There is an enormous need to offer more places to take more boys off the streets. The plan is to construct a purpose built brick building that will house fifty boys and provide them with quality accommodation, which will include a shower block.

All monies raised by the St. Michael’s Mukuru Project will go directly to support the building of the orphanage. You can follow the development of the project on this site. We hope to be able to shows plans for the new building and to keep you informed of the progress over the next three years. We look forward to the day when the orphanage will be open and fewer boys will have to spend their young lives on the dangerous streets of Nairobi