The Hamomi Children’s Center in Nairobi, Kenya, supports over 120 orphaned children with education and other basic necessities. Helping to do this is a group of volunteers on the Eastside who coordinate fundraising and long-term planning.
The center was founded in 1999 by Raphael Etenyi to provide support and primary education for seven orphaned children in Nairobi. Operating on its own, the center grew to 100 pupils by 2005.
Hamomi took the next step towards providing for its students in 2007, when Seattle resident Susie Marks began organizing and fundraising in Bellevue and Seattle, after a visit to the center.
“I was blown away,” said Marks.
At that point, Hamomi Children’s Center was really a “grassroots organization in the slum,” Marks noted. Despite the center’s success, charities in Kenya don’t have the same degree of resources available as in the United States, and Hamomi was still running without income, sustained only by the work of volunteers.
Since then, Hamomi has experienced rapid growth. It began a feeding program, put the teachers and directors on payroll, and began a program to support graduates of the school after the center had it’s first batch of graduates in 2009.
Free, accessible education is a big deal in Kenya.
“In 2003, the president made primary education free, but he didn’t implement any system to make it doable,” Marks said. The necessary supplies and uniforms were “difficult to acquire,” and the system “didn’t take care of the kids that needed it.”
Instead of the Kenyan government, volunteers from Bellevue, all around the United States, and even internationally stepped in to help out with fundraising, supply delivery and other aspects of organizing the center. Marks has turned the center into a formal non-profit, without accepting any pay herself.
In Bellevue, Hamomi USA is working on two premier events. Firs is promoting 2011 calendars featuring the healthy, smiling faces of Hamomi students. Second, they’re scrounging up items from local businesses to feature in a silent auction to be held in February.
“We’re always expanding,” said Marks, but Hamomi’s major goal for the next few years is to buy land. Owning land would give the center a chance to build and own their own infrastructure.
To that end, Hamomi is taking a grassroots approach. Working with Bellevue students has been key, said Marks; they like to encourage a “sister school kind of relationship.”
Students have “power in numbers,” Marks added. For example, two years ago Chinook Middle School’s leadership class raised $1,800 selling ice cream and bracelets, and students at Sacred Heart hold drives to give their used uniforms to their Kenyan counterparts. Hamomi even employs two interns from Interlake High School, who have been promoting calendars and gathering items for Hamomi’s silent auction.
Donors in Bellevue “can know the students’ names, their faces, they can Facebook and e-mail to keep track of them,” said Marks.
Donations of $25 receive a 2011 calendar, and Hamomi is set to hold its silent auction at Hotel Deca in Seattle’s University District on Feb. 5. For more information, visit http://www.hamomi.org.
Derek Tsang is an intern at the Bellevue Reporter. He attends Interlake High School.
