Christmas Angels

Christmas has come to Malaika and we are blessed again by gifts from our Angels in Italy; Maisha. Maisha and its' members put on a Christmas Fair every year to raise money and awareness about our special orphanage. We are so very grateful for their tireless efforts. And to all of you who have donated time, effort, love, food, clothes, and financial assistance; THANK YOU and BLESS YOU.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,
Malaika

Maji

The pump has been installed and Malaika has the most wonderful Christmas gift imaginable. Fresh, running water! This is such a big step for us in our new home, and we are so delighted. Life we be a lot easier here without having to import our water everyday! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of our Sponsors, especially Pedrollo! Asante sana.

Regina is Biking

Our little Regina is growing up so fast... Now she is on two wheels and zooming all over Malaika. Look out world!

Mia!

Malaika welcomes volunteer, Mia! We are so grateful and honored to have her help. Mia hails from Australia also, and she is helping us with some computer work as well as putting together a presentation about Malaika. We also discovered that she is a very capable fundi...so we are very lucky to have her. Mia is here with us now and will stay until January.
Asante sana, Mia!

Mama Sue

We have our Mama Sue back with us again! Mama Sue came to us in 2007 to spend six whole months working at Malaika. After a year back home in Australia, she has returned to us again. Mama Sue is a trained nurse with many years experience. She is incredibly hard-working and brings a new level of organization to the daily routine at Malaika. Mama Sue is especially devoted to our youngest children; always singing songs with them and teaching them puzzles and games. We are so honored to have her with us once again!

Bembea!! (Playground!!)

Through the generosity of Malaika's new friends, Barton and Valerie Bryan and their organization, COIN (Children's Orphanage International Network) Malaika now has it's own playground! We have a swingset, rings, carousel, teeter-totters and a magnificent slide. The construction and installation took two weeks-along with one back-breaking day of shovelling sand... ouch! The watoto are overjoyed and the opening day was truly a joy to behold. We are so pleased and proud, and ever so grateful to our friends from COIN. Thank you Barton and Val!

Malaika Gets Water and Electricity!!

Malaika has some new arrivals!! With the incredible generosity of Italy's PEDROLLO Srl, we now have a generator and water pump! This is such exciting news for us, with the addition of pump and gennie the children will have running water in the house as well as electricity for refridgerator, lights etc etc. We couldn't be happier about this (especially Mama Anna who has been carrying water buckets for the vegetable garden every day!) and send very special thank yous to our angels in Italy. Asante! Grazie! Thank you!

Lisa - Volunteer at Malaika

Malaika welcomes volunteers from all around the globe. Our most recent volunteer is Lisa from USA, she has been with Malaika for 6 weeks and has 6 more weeks to go.

Nutritionist visit at Malaika Childrens Home

On the 2nd of June Marie visited Malaika, Marie is a highly experienced Nutritionist. She came to train and advise the staff about the benefits of giving children healthy food - from Green Banana's and Potato to Meat and Rice. She went through all fruits and vegtables and advised on the nutritional value. This will help us know the right nutrients that it needed in order to achieve high levels of physical, mental and emotional health, and promote long life and the absence of ill health.
It was an excellent experience for the staff who were all very interested. They asked plenty of questions and were very enthusiatic! Marie will return to Malaika to see how the staff are getting on with their new found knowledge.

Babies day out!

Lisa, Beccy and Sister Carmelina took the little kids to a nearby playground for some swinging, sliding and sand-boxing.
After a somewhat timid beginning, the kids had a blast. The kiddie swings were a big favorite, as was making sand castles with Sister Carmelina (a teacher at St. Monica's-the watoto's school). It was a fun afternoon, and the kids celebrated with fruit juice at one of the picnic tables before we left and a they all had a well-earned nap on the car ride home...

Malaika Gate

At the end of May the fundi's put up the Malaika Gate, it looks wonderful.

We have to wait at least a month for the gate to function as the concrete needs to settle. As soon as the gate is usable we will fence it off with the wire fencing.

Sister Carmelina

Sister Carmelina has joined Malaika CHildrens home 2 days a week to help look after and play with the children. Sister is from St Monica's where the children attend school.
She comes on Tuesday and Saturday and the children love her as she enjoys playing games, singing and dancing with them.

Thanks to our Sponsors!

A very special thank you to our sponsors all over the world who have helped us in so many ways! Asante sana!

Baraka

Baby Baraka is our youngest child at Malaika, and boy, is he tough! Baraka always picks himself up, dusts himself off and keeps playing no matter what. He has big deep eyes and is always looking for a new adventure.

Comfort

Comfort wants to go to school so much! He will sometimes march determindly towards the road and announce his intention. "Shule!!" (School) Comfort loves motorcycles and he is very creative. He is an old soul who has developed very rapidly and is looking like he will be a very good student. So much so that we call him "The President"!

Baby Neema

Baby Neema is our welcome wagon here at Malaika. She will throw herself into your arms with all the love in her heart. She is starting to talk and her favorite word at the moment is 'atcha', which basically means 'no' and she has been singing it all over the house.

Paulo

When Paulo started school, all the teachers fell in love him. He has a deep voice and because of it has a wonderful deep and throaty laugh and a beautiful singing voice.

Lisa

Lisa is our wild child. She has had some troubles with focus in the past, but recently has been showing some real improvement. She has just started school and always comes home very jaunty and full of energy and enthusiasm.

Godbless

Godbless is the resident policeman of Malaika. He is very quick to report wrongdoings or unfairness. He is also our resident monkey and his favorite jungle gym of choice is whatever new and unsuspecting person has arrived at Malaika. Godbless is very bright and has been getting excellent reports in school.

Siaele

Sia was the first little girl to Malaika. She has just started school, and she says she loves it. She is a little shy, but inevitably everyone who ever comes to Malaika falls in love with her. In fact, when she first arrived we had to tell the volunteers to put her down, or she'd never have walked anywhere!

Helen

Helen is gentle and studied in everything she does. She is a bit of a loner, but she has adopted Baraka as her own. After school, he is the first person she approaches and she carries him into the house.

Samuel

Samuel is our 'bishop'. Most of the time he is as serious as can be, but often he breaks into wild laughter. He loves getting into things, clothing, tubs of water, and of course, buckets...

Neema

Neema is a quiet and graceful angel. She is always looking out for the wellfare of the younger children, especially with her younger brother Samuel. She is doing well in school and shows great promise as a student.

Festo

Festo is our resident jester. He is famous for breaking anything that he gets his hands on. He loves attention and will do all manner of athletic feats after school while saying in english, "Look at me!!"

Bettie

Betty is toddling around Malaika with purpose and joy. She always has a smile on her face and loves the quiet moments one on one best of all. She also loves to hold hands with the other children and can often be seen hand in hand with Baraka.

Fadhili

Fadhili is also in school and speaking a little english. He is very sweet and reserved and always helpful around the house. He keeps a very serious face most of the time, but was caught in a fun pre-nap moment.

Regina

Regina is in school and speaking very good english these days. She is dynamic, opinionated and loves to play Mama to all the other children.