Daylove

Mercy is an example of somebody with remarkable academic ability who needed the support of strangers for the opportunity to study.

Orphaned from a young age, she arrived at Daylove where she was embraced by staff, teachers and the Hand in Hand community. With a support system in place, she was able to excel in primary and secondary school, achieving an A- in her Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (a rare feat), and then again at university level graduating with first-class honours in Biotechnology.

She now supports herself with a job in pharmaceutics. She also gives back to the Daylove community attending Hand in Hand Mentorship forums where she cheers on other students on the same path.

She tells us she's dreaming of taking her education up to master's level.

We say the sky's the limit.

In the beginning, ACK Daylove Children's Project was a humble response to the needs of a few street children in the region. It has now steadily grown to be a centre of hope for families in the Dagoretti slum. It's become a project serving the neediest of young people who range from pre-primary age up to early career age.

Hand in Hand first partnered with the project in 1999. Supporters contributed significantly to the construction and improvement of facilities, funding a large part of the night shelter for children who have no home or can't be at home for whatever reason. In more recent years supporters are providing a large sum of money to cover expenses which keeps the Daylove's project up and running.

Roughly £27,000 required each year to sustain our commitment to Daylove!

Most families in Dagoretti don't have regular income and survive through casual labour or self-employment. Food security is a challenge, as is sanitation and overcrowding in the poorly built slum dwelling. Consequences are the spread of disease and social problems like drug and alcohol addiction - a form of escapism.

With a capacity for 40 children, the night shelter provides a secure home for some of the most desperate orphans and at-risk young people in the area. Besides offering a bed, the project employs house mothers to feed, clothe and care for them on site and also meets all of their educational needs.

The centre regularly sends out social workers and volunteers to the slum to do community outreach and offer support to its neediest families. This effort identifies those who would benefit from the night shelter and can even lead to the sponsorship of someone's education, who would otherwise not be able to study. Daylove also runs an onsite nursery providing sponsored places for very young children.

Daylove have plans to develop land at the front of their site with the view of becoming less dependent on the help of others. Keep an eye out for latest news on this.