Child sponsorship letter from Nairobi, Kenya

An example child sponsorship letter from Nairobi, Kenya:

Dear Sponsor,

Warm greetings to you! Half the year is gone and it is once again time to express our gratitude for your continued kindness to us. SOS Children's Village Nairobi has been a beehive of activities and we will just mention but a few.

Child Admission

Over the past months, the plights of orphaned and vulnerable children continue to keep our admission committee on their toes.  During this season the village received 7 new children, 3 girls & 4 boys.  They have adjusted to the new environment and the young ones are keeping their SOS mothers busy while the older children have joined school.

Inter-villages sports

This is an annual event that brings together children from all our four villages and the purpose is to enhance good family integration and build capacity for our children. SOS Children’s Village Nairobi emerged the overall winner receiving five trophies in the junior and senior boys’ football, senior girls’ football, Basketball and table tennis out of the eight given for the event.  The theme of this year’s event was “enhance your potential.’  It was evident that the competing teams had made a good selection of the participants representing their villages well.  Adjudicators were invited to oversee the day’s events and as a result two of our youth were selected to join two teams that participate in the National Premier Teams.

SOS Primary and Nursery School

An interesting activity for the children was the visit to the National Museum and the National Park.  The aim of the tour was to help teach the student on how to appreciate their country, national scenery, heritage of Kenya as well as relate to what they learn in school. The children from Nursery to grade one visited the National Museum of Kenya, the National Park, the Giraffe centre and the Mamba village where they saw the elephants, lions, giraffes, crocodiles and snakes. Grade four to eight visited fourteen falls and blue post where they saw natural waterfalls and a variety of bird life as well as a number of indigenous trees found only in that area. The children were able to enjoy nature, culture and history of our country. Reports from the teachers indicate that the children had lots of fun and were very grateful for the opportunity given to them and are now able to relate to what they have learnt in school.

Youth Community Service

The youths participated in the cleaning up exercise of the Kenya Railway Museum. The museum was established in 1971 to preserve and display relics and records of the railways of East Africa from inception to present day.

Technical Training Institute

In January the Technical Training Institute opened it doors to new admission were done for the youths who had completed secondary school education. The youths joined courses in Wood Technology, Electrical installation, Fashion & Design and Food & Beverage. In addition business entrepreneurs who have a desire to improve the quality of their products began attending Saturday classes. Worth noting is the food and beverage department whose students have successfully graduated and have since been employed in highly rated restaurants and bakeries.

SOS Vocational Training Centre

On the other hand, the training centre continued to prepare furniture for the villages and nurseries within the East African region. They are also serving as an apprentice training ground for the SOS Children’s Villages in Kenya and the neighbouring countries. Currently, the six apprentice that were on board have successfully completed their contract and already been employed by different companies.

Family Strengthening Programme

SOS Children’s Villages Kenya continues to work towards fulfilling the child rights protection policy within the community it operates. This is includes building the capacities of families which focuses on prevention of child abandonment.  To date 148 families from the community benefited from school uniform. The highlight for this 1st half of the year was the kid club which has been able to establish eight clubs that have 162 children participating. The children were kept busy with different children activities and were also able to learn about the child’s rights, self esteem, drug abuse and HIV/AIDS.

Again, thank you so much for your help. We owe all this to you as a friend and a sponsor. We can look back and say that we have had wonderful opportunities to be able to achieve our goals because together we are ONE!

Yours faithfully,