Two years have gone since sister Margaret found me at the Tourist Hotel in Homa Bay in Kenya. I was sitting in the foyer at the computer checking my mail, and she came there for the same purpose. "Hello, who are you, and where do you come from" she asked. I told her that I was a Rotary Doctor from Sweden. "Oh, Sweden is my second homecountry" she replied! That was the beginning of our friendship, and now we have met again at the same place.
She told me she runs a home for abandoned children, and oorphans, and her warm smile and curious eyes made me interested to know more. The other Rotary Doctor Katherine from Stockholm and I, went to see her house, and were later invited for a dinner we never will forget. We were showed the houses she rents and told how she does to run all this.
In total she has helped 215 children since 1987. She started to be a nun, but did not fulfill when she discovered misbehaviour from some priests. She was a teacher and a head mistress1982-2003, and her school got the first price several times in the national competition. 2003 she changed her life to social work, she has now smaller children to take care of, which takes more time. Most children are going to boarding schools, which costs 1200-3500SEK per child and year depending on stage.. She is also running lots of other projects, with women in the slum, beauty contest for the female prisoners (!), feeding program, talking to the prostitutes, preventing newborn children to be abandoned etc. She also told us how she worked hard to prevent a refugee camp in Homa Bay at the post-election quarrels 4 years ago. She went up and down at the main street with a loudspeaker encouraging people to help with money, food, transportation, and protection to the people who lost their homes. She managed with this, and has got a presidential award, we were shown the diploma.
Kenya and the world would really need many women (and men) like sister Margaret to be a better place for all!
At our first visit, we also got to know the she had been given a piece of land of 5 acres some kilometers outside Homa Bay, and her dream was to be able to build a house there, to get a real homestead for children who had no relatives at all. After we were back in Sweden Katherine and I has raised money and sent to her account now and then. THANK YOU ALL WHO HAS CONTRIBUTED TO THIS!!
Sister Margaret has done a fantastic job, with great help from all her grown-up "children" and friends, so now there is a beautiful house with more facilities than most houses in Kenya. There is a bore-hole with lots of water, irrigation, pumps, septic tanks, solar system for light, and a large plantation with lots of different growths. There is ecologic plantation with maize, millets, green grams, lots of grownuts, kassawa, tomatoes, agave, bananas, mangoes, cabbage, papaya, passion fruits etc. Her remaining plan for the farm is a fridge/freezer, a red-wooden (swedish) guesthouse for the boys, and a mill to make oil from sunflower! If I know her right, all that has come true when we come there next time.
She has also plans for a new house in town, she bought a plot of land for the money she got from the president, and want to build a new house there too, to get rid of the rents every month.
She has some people employed, she gets help from the older children, and all is arranged with help from a lawyer to be correct for the future, but she doesn´t get anything from the government or the community. A big challenge is to have enough money at the beginning of the schoolyear for all the fees.
We wish her all the best to remain so strong and brave, without thinking of herself. For all who read this we can recommend to support her work, and we will be very glad to give you more information if needed.
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