PressSplit
Gaby Kusenberg, here visiting a school, is committed to helping children in Nairobi. She founded an important institution, an orphanage, which is run with the help of donations. © pv
In order to give poor children in Nairobi a future, the Altenstadt-based aid organization Colored Future Life runs a local orphanage. Now they want to expand the range of services and are hoping for support.
Altenstadt (hr). Education is the most promising way out of poverty. And the majority of children in Africa live in poverty. The Altenstadt-based association Colored Future Life has made it its mission to remedy this situation. It runs an orphanage in the Kenyan capital Nairobi and plans to expand its services. But this requires support.
In 2019, the Colored Future Life association was founded in Altenstadt. At that time, its chairwoman Gaby Kusenberg traveled to Nairobi at the invitation of Bishop Dr. Jean-Luc Nkinzo Rukara. There she saw and experienced a lot of hopelessness in the midst of garbage and dirt. And countless children in these conditions. This concerned Kusenberg very much. Moved by this poverty, the Altenstadt association has been committed to the well-being of children ever since.
Together with Bishop Nkinzo Rukara, he founded his own orphanage in Nairobi for the Peniel Child Care Center. A facility that offers 40 children a safe home with loving all-round care and where their education is also provided.
Five years have now passed since Kusenberg’s first trip to Kenya. At the time, it was hard to imagine what great successes the association and its supporters could achieve in a relatively short time: As early as 2021, the children in care were able to leave the slums. “What is a small thing for us makes a crucial difference for the people there: You have to know that there is no state support for social institutions in Kenya – that means they live exclusively on donations,” explains the association’s chairwoman.
Since the Corona pandemic, the children have had to be divided into smaller groups and housed in separate houses. The aim was to bring them back together later so that they could then integrate their own school. The association achieved this goal in June. Colored Future Life is now working on taking in more schoolchildren whose parents also pay for their attendance. This will then provide a solid foundation for the entire house.
Boris Meinzer becomes patron
To achieve this goal, Gaby Kusenberg is hoping for more donations and supporters. There is often great uncertainty about how to help people in poverty in a meaningful way. Kusenberg explains: “With us, supporters can be sure that donations are transferred directly and that every single euro is used. Because we all work voluntarily at Colored Future Life.” The chairwoman travels to Nairobi every year to get a first-hand impression of the situation.
And the association’s efforts have already attracted attention. Boris Meinzer, comedian and editor at Hit Radio FFH, is one of its supporters: “More than 600 million children live in Africa – that’s almost half of the African population! But many of them suffer from hunger, come from difficult family backgrounds and have no access to education or medical care. That’s why it’s important that there are associations like Colored Future Life from Altenstadt that give these children a better future. Education is the best way to get out of poverty. I’m happy to take on the patronage of the association.”
Anyone who would like to support the association in its work can do so with a donation in return for a donation receipt. This should be made to the association’s account with the IBAN number DE 70 5066 1639 0104 4433 65 at the VR Bank Main-Kinzig-Büdingen.
