You have grown up in a life where most of your needs are readily provided. Donations come, volunteers help, guardians attend to you. No being taken to the farm, no helping the family make money.
But you soon become an adult. That means you are ineligible to be in the children’s home that has been giving you all that comfort. The “soft” life dissipates; the freebies are cut off. Now you have to fend for yourself.
Kenya does not have a policy on how a child under the care of a children’s home should be handled when they reach the age of majority, and that has left many suffering. The Sunday Nation understands that some have found themselves on the throes of crime as they struggle to make money in a capitalist world they were ill prepared to face. Others venture into prostitution. Others sink into drugs.
One of those is 27-year-old Ibrahim Ombima, an orphan in Nairobi’s Eastleigh who had to leave a children’s home in 2018; a place he had called home since he was four years old. He admitted that he was into crime until last year.
But before we delve into Ibrahim’s story, this is what a government officer told us about Kenya’s policy on releasing Ibrahim and other such former orphanage children to the world: “At 18, you are no longer a child. (You shouldn’t be housed) unless there are other things like school and such.” That was Mr Kung’u Mwaniki, the children officer for Nyeri County.
“There are no laws, but human dignity requires that they be given an exit path. Sometimes, you go beyond 18 because the person is in university and such. But sometimes, if it’s exiting, there is maybe a course you have organised for them. You establish them then they go, just like your own child. When your child reaches 18, you don’t kick them out. You perhaps teach them, they finish university at 24 and probably even start a business for them. We don’t have rules of engagement but I think that is human dignity,” added Mr Mwaniki.
Ibrahim grew up at Mama Fatuma Children’s Home in Eastleigh, where he was educated up to Form Four. They also got a hotel job for him, but he didn’t seem to like it, so he absconded work. And he was unwelcome at the home.
Administrators at Mama Fatuma told Nation in an earlier interview that they have been plagued by cases of their beneficiaries not being keen on work. They narrated cases of children they helped find jobs in at least three places, but all didn’t work.
Mr Joshua Okuku, an official at the institution, said: “They’re at a certain level in life where they say you cannot dictate them because they are adults. But when they come, we take them as our children because you can’t hope for a good life for your own children while you’re plotting evil for the (orphaned) children you take care of. It’s not just in God’s eyes .”
Ibrahim, an orphan, believes he should have been prepared better for life outside the home.
“The challenges start after someone finishes their Form Four. When you’re in there, you don’t see challenges because you wake up to something on the table. By the time you finish Form Four to confront the life outside, it gets difficult because you’re used to the life in there,” he narrated. “I don’t know anyone. I only know Mama Fatuma.”
He said he was brought to the home when he was about four years old. He has been informed that he has relatives but he has no idea where they might be.
“At the moment, I have no one or nothing to depend on. As I’m with you now, I don’t know what I will eat tonight,” he said. “And I don’t have family or a relative I can run to.”
The dilemma of handling children who become adults in orphanages is not unique to Mama Fatuma. Ms Susan Owuor Njuguna, who runs the Elroi Children’s Home in Nairobi’s Komarock, faces the same challenges.
“Now the government says that if they finish Form Four, it doesn’t want them to stay at the home. They need to get a place away from other children because when they stay together, you know they’ll start becoming parents,” Ms Owuor told Nation.
“So, if one has gone to college, they can come to visit, but not to sleep over. But we are not entertaining that,” said Ms Owuor, noting that there is no form of assistance the government gives.
“It’s you to try to find ways of empowering this child,” she said.
“We work with well-wishers, to help those who finished Form Four. There is a baker who has taken them up to be apprentices. They bake part-time so as to earn something. After college, I also integrate them with my mother. She mentors them to go to town for work, and such. There’s no other option,” she added .
Ibrahim said the most affected are the children who are not bright and as such, cannot pursue higher education.
“People don’t have similar brains. There are the sharp ones who learn quickly; and others who are average. If the average students get someone who can hold their hand for instance in nurturing football talent, it will make a difference.”
On his life in crime, Ibrahim said it was due to bad company and the little options he had.
“I have worked with guys who did those things (crime). I’ve done some myself. But last year, I felt those things haunting me. I sat down and prayed and those things left me. Let’s not lie to each other: a lot of youths have died due to crimes,” he said, noting that he will readily take up any available job, now as he wants to start a family this year.
Mr Said Mohammed, another official at Mama Fatuma, said they take the best care of the wellbeing of children under them. However, he said, there is room for improvement in the aspect of releasing the adults to society.
“If you go there now, you’ll find the children happy,” he said.
Mr Okuku, his fellow administrator, posed: “Someone has been schooled up to college and linked to a job, isn’t such a person supposed to take care of themselves at work?”
The concept of children’s homes will soon end because as per the current children’s law, which came into effect in July last year, no child should be kept in an institution for more than three.
“Unless there are compelling circumstances, a child shall not be placed in a charitable children’s institution for a period exceeding three years,” says the Children Act, 2022.
