Rafiki Mwema
Rafiki Mwema means ‘Loyal Friend’ and that is what Play Kenya will be to these young girls.
We are so proud that we have taken in our first two little girls - both age 7 and victims of sexual abuse. We are dedicated to make this trauma easier to manage - and hopefully return them safely to their families in time.
Rafiki Mwema is born from the need to support very young girls who have been sexually abused. There are sadly too many girls under the age of 12 who have experienced sexual abuse and at this time there is no specialized care for these very vulnerable children. Play Kenya have started this therapeutic safe house to help these little girls make sense of the horrors that have happened to them, allow them access to any medical treatment they need, support them through the court system, and where possible to work with their families for a safe return to home.
For this to happen we need to train and employ very special staff. We have very high expectations from the women who will care for these children and will hand pick carefully to ensure as close to a family atmosphere as we can create.
All our staff will have to complete the Attachment Play Programme training, receive training on Emotional First Aid and have access to their own counseling. They will be closely monitored and supervised at all times.
The children will be given time to adjust to what is happening in their lives and then will be emotionally supported to help understand the trauma they have been through. We will, where possible and when the girls are ready, introduce them into an education, which will help them to have a structure to their days. We will also provide them with a mentor who will be important to them understanding and coping with the court procedures.
It is very important that the girls are physically and emotionally safe when they are at Rafiki Mwema and prepared for what lies ahead. We will work closely with the local government and community to ensure this happens.
The house will be a small community to start with but I am sure will be very quickly full – so we are looking for a large house to buy/rent to support as many children as possible.
The girls will stay with us for up to a year and during that time the aim will be to return to their own homes. For this to happen we will work with the families (providing the accused perpetrator is not still in the home) to help them understand that the children are not to blame for what has happened. We will work with the mothers and teach them the skills needed to continue the emotional support of their child, and will always be available for on-going support if needed.
For the girls who returning home is not an option, Play Kenya will work towards a safe foster family (who understand the child’s needs and difficulties) or a specialized children’s home who can meet the child’s need. The dream is for every girl to be safely back home, but the reality is that for some girls this can’t be.
We need you to help us keep this much-needed project a reality. We continually need to employ top quality, well trained staff who can improve the lives of these children; we need all the essentials that every home takes for granted – we need to be able to feed them well, and keep them warm and dry.
Please help where you can – we have a ‘sponsor a bed’ scheme, which costs £20 a month, and we will have 10 sponsors for each bed. This will meet the physical needs of the girl who is with us at that time. You will be sent a bi-monthly e-mail to tell you who is with us at that time and their progress.
We need one-off donations to buy equipment. We need a washing machine (many sexually abused trouble have difficulties with bed-wetting); bedding, utensils, rugs, saucepans, cutlery, sofas, tables, and so much more!
Please see our donations page and chose where you would like your money spent
We are extremely grateful for any help you can give – if £20 a month is too much maybe you could join up with friends to make up this amount and follow the progress that your financial support means to these little children
Asante Sana Rafiki
Attachment Play Programme (APP)
APP is at the heart of everything that is Play Kenya!
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We train in orphanages, schools, prisons. Play Kenya works with abused and traumatised children in some of the orphanages in Nakuru. Trained Play and Filial therapists carry out a structured Attachment Play Program based on the essence of Filial Therapy. In this program the local staff, those who spend their days with the children, learn skills designed to allow and develop an attachment with the children in their care.? This is important in so many ways. If children are never allowed to address the abandonment and trauma of their early lives, they will really struggle to develop healthy attachments in their lives. They may continue to be wary and mistrustful or totally unboundaried in their relationships with others. By helping these children we are hopefully giving them the chance to become good friends, good husbands and wives and worthwhile members of their communities. Children who have experienced abuse carry enormous guilt and shame and often feel it is their fault that the abuse happened. One of the ways we can help these resilient young children is by inter-subjectively reliving their shame. We can do this through an attachment play program
Football Project
This project has been just amazing! Anisha and Duncan have worked with orphaned boys and those who have lived on the streets. They meet bi-weekly and have developed not just their football skills but also – team work! So many of these young men have lived a solitary life where they have had to think of themselves above others just to survive. For them to embrace the team philosophy is truly humbling to see.
We have some fantastic footballers but they have only one ball – and most play in bare feet – please help us to buy more footballs and some football boots – the boys deserve at least that in their tough lives
Community Projects
Play Kenya work where we are needed and that can be almost everywhere! One of the projects we are passionate about at the moment is working in the local Women’s Prison. Many of these women have their children with them until the child is 4 years old. The prison chief is a really good woman who is working hard to improve things for these women – but life there is tough – even for the children. They are well fed and clean but they need more understanding of their importance to their mothers (who often have depression, mental health issues or are finding prison hard to take)
Play Kenya have painted the nursery to make it more child friendly and we have introduced very strict homework for the women- singing to their children! We are also teaching the mothers the Attachment Play Programme (APP) to mothers and wardens alike. We have a member of staff in the prison weekly to help the women and the wardens with the skills
