Pictured above: Founder and Executive Director Rosemary Wafula brought the team to the Kibera slum in Nairobi.

This is the third message about what Brydges Centre visitor’s teams experience. If you missed the last one about how the team was welcomed upon arriving at the Centre, you can read it here.

A common question people ask is how children come to call the Centre home. Children are either orphaned or abandoned, or they have been removed from their family by the government due to severe abuse or neglect. Children come from both urban and rural places to join the Brydges Centre Family.

One place is called Kibera.

Rosemary’s calling to serve children came from the needs she saw in Kibera and other slums surrounding Nairobi. As she walked our team through mazes of corridors and over drainage trenches, she wanted our hearts to be touched the same way hers was 30 years ago.

Kibera is the largest slum in Kenya and many believe it is the largest slum anywhere in Africa. While the exact population is unknown, thousands of makeshift buildings, shacks, and lean-to shelters house somewhere between 200,000 and 1,000,000 people.

As with the total Kibera population, no one knows exactly how many orphaned or abandoned children live on the streets of Nairobi’s slums.

What everyone does know is that Rosemary and her staff have rescued hundreds of them to raise them as beloved sons and daughters of the Brydges Centre Family.

Kenyan Leaders Making Impact Together

Rosemary has developed a number of strategic, high-impact relationships with community leaders and officials throughout Nairobi and in rural communities far from any city. In Kibera, one such relationship is with a man named Popo, who served as a guide and leader for our team’s visit.

Popo has an amazing story of being raised by a single mother as one of eleven children. Scholarships helped him through school and into a good job as a reporter, but God had other plans.

While reporting on the plight of youth in Kibera a friend challenged him to “be the change.” He quit his job and formed a Christian nonprofit that teaches dance, career skills, and community development called “Angaza,” which means “Light.”

The team was blessed by a short drama performed by children in the Angaza program focused on the hope, love and healing of Jesus Christ. We also saw Angaza’s computer lab and community center, and we visited residents of Kibera. Check out more of Popo’s story here.

Our team saw much light in the darkness of Kibera and how lives are being changed. We also saw the vision of God working through Kenyan leaders like Popo and the Brydges Centre’s beloved founder and Executive Director, Rosemary.

YOU are a part of the light that shines in the darkness as well!

Supporting the Brydges Centre means supporting a bright vision for Kenya’s children and Kenya’s future.

As we come alongside Rosemary and her staff, we come alongside the next generation of Kenyan leaders who can carry the vision of God into dark places.

Watch for our next message about the ways our team engaged THEIR gifts, talents, and passions at the Centre with the kids…

With Love,
Bob, Nancy, Rosemary, The BC Staff, the Children, and the US Volunteers