feature:24 years as Cherry Brierley Children’s home in Kisumu gives hopes to orphans.

 The entrance to Cherry Brierley Children’s home run by the Kisumu Children Ministries-Photos By Dickson Odhiambo

By Dickson Odhiambo.

February 1, 2019.

24 years as Cherry Brierley Children’s home in Kisumu gives hopes to orphans.

A visit to a children’s home within Kisumu West Sub-County in Kisumu County in Kenya ushers you into another territory which is very much unfamiliar and you won’t know its existence until one enters the home.

This is none other than Cherry Brierley Children’s home run by the Kisumu Children Ministries situated in Korando B Sub-Location and supported by the Kisumu Children Trust which is a charitable organization based in the United Kingdom.

The Children’s home which is situated along Kisumu-Busia Road before Kisian Junction begun its work in the year 1995 but in a rented premises next to the infamous Otonglo market at Rainbow area.

In 2007, construction towards  the Cherry Brierley Children’s home which is named after two Britons Peter and Cherry Brierley who is a husband and a wife begun on 12^th June 2007 when the then Anglican Church of Kenya Bishop in charge of Maseno South Diocese Dr. Francis Mwayi Abiero participated in the ground breaking ceremony.

Dr. Mwayi is now a retired Bishop of the Anglican Church Maseno South Diocese.

The dream of establishing a children’s home seems to have been mooted by a Kisumu based Pentecostal Pastor known as Stephen Awuondo who on one day in the autumn in 1994 wrote a letter to a charity worker based in an office in South-East London while asking him to be his spiritual advisor.

The recipient Peter Brierley quickly declined not because he did not appreciate the value of spiritual advisers but because he was a statistician and advising spiritually was not one of his skills.

“There was also the fact that Kisumu City was over 4,000 miles away and he had neither met the author of the letter nor had any knowledge of him,” says Hand in Hand, the book that was published in the year 2015 about Kisumu Children Trust celebrating 20 years of existence.

However, in his reply Brierley enclosed a five pounds note with a few words to Pastor Awuondo saying that was for his family and in appreciation, Awuondo thanked him profusely but was quickly to tell him that he had some three orphans he was looking after and humbly asked Brierley to spare another five pounds note for the orphans. He sent ten pounds note.

This is how the friendship between Pastor Awuondo and the two Britons grew stronger and stronger thereby culminated to the establishment of the Children’s home named after Peter and Cherry Brierley.

The Kisumu Children Trust based in the United Kingdom was formed around the year 2000 and it supports the Kisumu Children Ministry which runs the Cherry Brierley Children Home.

It attained its full charitable status in the year 2002 with the objectives of relieving poverty in East Africa, advancing the Christian faith and Helping children in every way.

The Act of taking care of orphans by Pastor Awuondo seemed to have been motivated by his parents Joseph Awuondo and Maria Awuondo, staunch Anglicans who started taking care of the orphans in early 70s while being farmers. 

Awuondo became the first Manager of the Cherry Brierley Children’s home till he retired in 2003 when Reverend Philemon Oguna of the Anglican Church of Kenya took over from him till to date.

 Reverend Philemon Oguna, the Manager of Cherry Brierley Children’s home.

              

According to Reverend Oguna, the manager of the Cherry Brierley Children’s Home who also doubles as the chaplain for the new Maseno South ACK Diocese Bishop Dr. Charles Ong’injo says the home now boasts of about 71 orphans and partial orphans whom they are now supporting while staying within the compound.

Oguna says they have been taking care of the orphans and the vulnerable children whom they take through primary, secondary and to the University education.

He says they recruit the orphans and vulnerable children between the ages of six to ten years whom they enroll to public primary school then proceed to secondary schools and eventually to the University after they successfully qualified.

Reverend Oguna says those who have not qualified to join secondary school are given chances of joining the vocational training centers where they train on different cadres like Building technology, fashion design, electrical installations, carpentry among other courses.

He adds that they have successful stories from some of the children they have brought up within the home and are now self-employed while others are employed by the Government.

“We have success stories about the orphans and the vulnerable children we have been having here because we have managed to produce a nurse, teachers, medical laboratory technicians among others,” Oguna says.

He says one of the challenges the home has is to how to source for the 30 percent of its budget locally, adding that this is so because the Kisumu Children Trust in Britain only provides for 70 percent of its budget.

Oguna says another challenge is that of inadequate staff to meet the needs of the home like taking care of the children, adding that there is need to recruit staffs who are children friendly as this is very vital in the day to day running of the institution.

Oguna says the other challenge also emanates from trying to trace the roots of lost and found children who have been given to them by the Children’s department.

He adds that the home has an exit strategy where once a child  has successfully done her final exam in class eight then they are transited to the boarding section of Secondary school and comes back to stay with their parents or guardians.

He adds that while doing this, the home continues to pay for the school fees as well as providing other things needs while the children are learning.

  Reverend Philemon Oguna admires a tree planted within the Children's home.

“We believe in God and we attribute our success to the Almighty Lord. We engage the children in a lot of counselling so as to ensure that they are well mannered and brought up in a Christian way of live,” Oguna adds.

He says he appreciates the kind of good trainings that the managers of the children’s Homes courtesy of the National Government.

He says the Government should consider funding the registered charitable children institutions so as to help in running such like institutions.

“The Government should consider giving some grants for the development of registered charitable children’s institutions across the country,” Oguna further says.

Reverend Oguna says the best way forward is to practice the approach of an Alternative family care which the Government is trying to come up with where the children are allowed to stay with their guardians at home and they are supported from there.

Osir Clinton Omondi 22 , a graduate from Maseno University with the Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Science says he appreciates a lot the support he has received from the home since the year 2001 when he was taken there as a partial orphan.

He says without the Children’s home, he can’t tell where he would have been and thank God for being brought up within the home.

Omondi who graduated from Maseno University last December hopes to get a job and gives back to the society, adding that he also looks forward to forming a community based organization {CBO} that will be dealing with sensitizing the locals on ways of managing solid waste.

The Local Communities say Cherry Brierley Children’s Home in Kisumu has never looked back since Reverend Oguna took over its management since the Priest who is a former teacher and a very godly man of deep sincerity has high integrity coupled with passionate love for children.

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