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

To read about the teachers visit to Mukuru click here.