Help purchase land for rescued street boys in Kenya!

We are Evie Grace Foundation and Global Hope Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre.

As well as housing, our former street boys receive all needs necessary to live a healthy childhood: education, food, clothing, time to play, love, counselling and mentorship at a bare minimum. It has taken time, dedication and funding to get to where we are today. If we want to continue to grow, buying land brings the ability to provide so much more and to ensure these boys not only survive but get the opportunity to thrive.

From little things, big things grow.

In 2012, Joseph Njoroge started a football club with a handful of street boys, as from personal experience he understood and empathised with the challenges street children face. From there Joe rented one room where the boys could sleep, shower and eat to escape the dangers of living on the streets of Nairobi. Fast forward 7 years to 2019 and Joe’s small football club is now a rescue and rehabilitation centre housing at least 110 former street boys at a time, rescued from all over Kenya.

Our greatest challenge currently is that we have run out of space and the house is becoming unsafe for our boys so we need your help in raising money to buy and build the home they need and greatly deserve. Some nights we sleep 6 or 7 boys to a single bunk bed, every morning we wake to prepare for school at 4am as we have one shower and one toilet that 110 children share and we live next to a sewage-contaminated river exposing all of us to typhoid and cholera; these diseases spread quickly and are deadly.

Without Global Hope and the support of our incredible supporters, many of these boys would still be living on the streets in unimaginable conditions if not dead. Each child has an incredible life story entailing resilience and strength from traumatic and devastating experiences.

From taking drugs so they do not feel cold at night to rummaging through piles of rubbish to find food; our boys some as young as 10 years old have had experiences that no child deserves to face.

There isn’t a boy at the centre who doesn’t have a brother, cousin or friend that has died from street life either from starvation, overdosing on drugs, mob justice or being beaten to death by police in an effort to ‘clean up the streets’. There are a huge number of street children in Kenya, and as Global Hope is one of the only centres in the country rescuing and rehabilitating street boys it is an endless struggle. On a daily basis, we are informed of street boys facing near death experiences and children showing up to the gate with nowhere else to go, yet we are completely OUT OF SPACE.We cannot fit more in, already there are 3-4 boys in a single bed sharing a single blanket. Our rented buildings are all damaged and leak when it rains, making it difficult to eat meals, do homework and play games.

The compound we currently reside in is too small for our needs and as we rent, every dollar we are forced to spend on repairs and maintenance feels like money wasted; not to mention our daily stress of being evicted if the landlord decides to demolish or sell. After many stressful days and sleepless nights, the Founder and the volunteers have come to the conclusion that the only option is to purchase land so that we are able to construct our own buildings.

Our biggest and most difficult issue is we do not have money; some months it’s difficult to purchase food or pay school fees so without your help purchasing land is not an option for us. That’s why we are calling for support from all over the world, we know we can’t achieve our dream of purchasing land without your help and although it’s a big ask, the thought of all our boys becoming homeless, returning to the streets and facing the possibility of death is more than we can bare so we are COMMITTED to raising money for land.

We had found land but because we were unable to fundraise the required amount in time, the land is now sold. We are continuing looking and right now an acre in Ngong (where we reside) is around 8 million KSH which is equivalent to roughly $80,000 USD or $120,000 AUD. We have currently fundraised 5 million KSH which is just over half of the required amount. It is a government requirement that we have a minimum amount of one acre due to the number of children that will be housed. For us, the amount of money still to raise is daunting and more than we’ve ever seen in our lifetimes, yet we are hopeful when we break it down: 30 people assisting to raise $1,000 USD or 60 people raising just $500 USD each in the next 6 months seems absolutely achievable. Kenya is developing quickly, and other countries are buying huge amounts of land causing prices to rise quicker than ever but during this worldwide pandemic we have seen the prices of land remain the same, some have even dropped so now is the time that we need to work fast. If we don’t act now, the possibility of owning our own land only becomes more difficult.

We have generous local and international supporters READY AND WAITING TO CONSTRUCT everything as soon as we have land.

We have all worked too hard to get to where we are, to only get this far.Please help us to ensure we can continue supporting our boys and many more street children for years to come. Every single dollar is so greatly appreciated!

If you would like more information or are interested in assisting us to fundraise for land in a bigger way, please contact the Founder Joe Njoroge at globalhoperescuecentre777@gmail.com or the Australian Director Maddi Kent at maddi@eviegrace.org

Thank you so much for your support and taking the time to read about our land fundraising efforts!