Embu Rescue Centre for young people

Moving Mountains supports and runs a wide range of facilities and services for children, something we call ‘social prescribing’ in the UK. The feeding programme at the Rescue Centre is one of the key programmes because obviously hunger is such a driving force. Children come every day to get food, and mostly the meal they get is the only one of the day, so it’s a central part of their daily routine.

But we are much more than that, the MM staff become confidants to the young people and with trust built up over years they can encourage them to join other programmes like the football academy or the lifeskills programme, or to join a local school, or go to counselling to tackle addictions, or get some work experience, perhaps get a job or start a small business. Mental health is a significant factor in every one of these beneficiary’s lives, and all of our staff have training and long experience in how to work with young people, and also the families and also the communities.

We don’t work in isolation, we integrate with the local schools and help them develop their own facilities. For example we help develop music classes, sports and drama clubs, and we run the life skills activities. Plus of course we fund refurbishments of County Primary and Urban Primary and the local school for children with special needs. On the lower slopes of Mt Kenya, about 10 kms outside the town we have also re-built the rural Gatwe Primary School.

The vision of the founder was to never anonymise the beneficiaries but to treat every individual as just that, and to provide a kind of ball of security around a child, in which he or she can grow normally. The notion of social prescribing works in countries where the State provides a comprehensive structure to provide for many hundreds of different kinds of needs, but in many places that indrastructure simply doesn’t exist. Moving Mountains sees itself as that ‘hub’ which works along the families, the communities, the church and the authorities to try and help children caught in the desperate trap of material poverty, abuse and a lack of human rights, and also to prevent the problem from perpetuating.

Throughout the years the Embu Rescue Centre has relied on our general funds, never having received a grant or government funding. Many donors have been directly supportive of this really quite unique facility (in the sense of it having surivived for so long and genuinely tackled the root cause of children living rough), and we have had many volunteers come to help. Schools such as King Edwards School in Bath have provided many years or support for the Centre, and our medical elective students always get involved preparing meals for children.

In 2005 we obtained permission to use the centre from the church and did some renovations and put in a store, a kitchen with a wood and gas stove, toilet and shower facilities, installed a perimeter fence and equipped the centre with utensils and equipment. From those humble beginnings we started feeding children; in those days most of them were sleeping rough but as the years passed those numbers reduced as as managed to encourage them into school, and we provided lunches for kids in the two primary schools in town too.

Adventure Alternative school groups, volunteers and medical elective students have provided continual support for the Rescue Centre through simply coming on the trip which generates revenue for the Centre, and also through direct fundraising. Many people over the years have helped to renovate and build the centre and have peeled potatoes and prepared meals!

• King Edwards School is a major donor to the Centre and has brought groups to visit Kenya for many years. Their commitment has been a serious and vital lifeline, not least during covid when the school helped out with virtual fundraising events that literally kept us going.
• Steven Fletcher, Vision for Kids Northern Ireland
• Mr Chris Bowden has for many years funded the feeding programme for the children.

Volunteering – teaching non-examinable subjects such as music, sport, arts and running extra-curricular clubs and providing small group reading lessons and mentoring. Note that this position will require a DBS check and some evidence and experience of working with children.

Africamp School Trips – these summer camps for Kenyan children are a core part of our identity as Moving Mountains and we had our first camp back in 1996 in Nairobi. You can help run one of these camps with your school and be a part of something really quite extraordinary.

There are plenty of videos from some of our schools trips here.

In 2005 most of the Rescue Centre kids had a lack of direction in their life, many were sleeping on the streets and sniffing glue daily. When we started the Black Cats football clubs in Embu in 2006 we realised how bad the addiction to glue was…some of the boys were hiding glue in the sleeves of their football tops and sniffing during competitive matches, they were certainly rough diamonds!

The difference in those same people today is astounding, and is testament to the hard work of the volunteers and staff at the Embu Rescue Centre, particularly Lilian Wanjiru who acts like a mother to all the kids, and of course Gilbert Njeru.

The aim of our youth group is to promote and develop small income-generating projects to provide employment and money. We registered them as a youth group with the Jua Kali Association of Embu and then paid for training and group loans and savings with Care Kenya. Successful local enterprises have included a car wash, bicycle repairs and community clear up gangs.

The purchase of a power washer and large water storage tank for example greatly benefited the car wash business with a fast turnaround, more clients and more money. This maybe doesn’t sound like much but the car wash business has been going now for 15 years and provides work and money for many young people.  Not only that but the profits are recycled into small start up loans for new businesses for the young people. For example one of the boys saved 7,000ksh and he bought a tool box kit to work as a mechanic and managed to get a job as a turn boy with one of the lorry owners in Embu and begin earning an income. He still has that job and affords his own rent and lifestyle.

In 2012 we bought the boys an interlocking brick making machine so they can put their efforts into making the bricks which they can sell at very good prices.

The aim is always to keep the Centre open and providing food for needy children, and ultimately that is what we have achieved since 2005. We have been instrumental in reducing the number of children sleeping rough from around 190 to nearer 40, but our aim is to reduce it to zero. This doesn’t just mean the feeding programme, this means working with each child and providing a social prescribing hub for every one.

The feeding centre is always in need of renovations and new equipment, and we are always looking for volunteers to come out and assist. It’s important that these children feel the sense of empowerment and pride when they eat well and go to the football club, or go camping, or sign up to school, or are simply listened to.

Another perennial aim is to always improve the food we provide. Cost of living is high and sometimes we are forced to provide only basic necessities like rice, ugali maize, corn, vegetables and beans. Sometimes we can provide fruit and meat and milk, so a future aim is to have the financial security to handle the rising cost of food prices and provide more than just a basic necessity for the beneficiaries.