Huband Cradle of Hope Children's Home ( HCHCH ) is an initiative founded by a small group of individuals responding to an overwhelming HIV / AIDS crisis in Kenya. It offers desperately needed foster and permanent care for orphaned and vulnerable children from all regions of Kenya. Many of these children have been together since 2004, under the non-governmental organization Positive Education In
ternational ( PEI ). PEI, established in 2002, was primarily a feeding and education centre. When 17 children utilizing the services began sleeping there, having nowhere else to go, its founders realized that the community needed to address a different crisis - that of the homeless child. The future of PEI would be HCHCH. Huband Cradle of Hope was registered by the Kenya Ministry of Home Affairs in 2007 as Charitable Children's Institution #000322. Its aim is to create and maintain a stable, safe and nurturing home for children affected by AIDS, violence and poverty, taking full responsibility for their welfare until we locate family deemed capable of caring for them, or until they reach adulthood, and are psychologically and financially ready to return to their former communities. HCHCH works effortfully to locate any living relatives of the children - however long it takes - and wherever possible, strives towards permanent reunification, or at the least, holiday visits. The range of needs of the children residing at HCHCH vary and include the following:
Basic necessities and rights of life: food, water, shelter, clothing, health / dental care, education and love
Psychological counseling re: issues of abandonment, loss of parent, physical/sexual/emotional abuse history, etc.. Facilitation of ongoing connections with each child's remaining family or former community / ongoing search for living relatives and securing history of and for the child
Skills building in areas of creative arts, dance, poetry and song, gardening, animal care, carpentry, crafts and sewing
Life skills lessons in hygiene, nutrition, education, health and dental care, illness prevention, social interaction, puberty changes, etc. Attention to areas of self expression, development of interests, self awareness and esteem building
Assisted teaching for those with intellectual and learning disabilities
And so, so much more...
Huband Cradle of Hope Children's Home has a vision. At present, HCHCH has the capacity and means to support 32 children. With subsequent funding, it will open its doors and hearts to the many more children of Kenya who deserve a chance to be all they can be - a chance to simply live and learn to embrace life. Small perhaps in the big picture.
