PAMOJA COMMUNITY CENTERS
Pamoja (“together” in swahili) work in communities that present a specific need or display a void that ACO can fill for individuals and families that call it home. The Kilifi Pamoja Center works in the small fishing village on the Indian Ocean. A large influence from Islam and driven by a strong tourist industry, the ACO staff invest in next generations through programs that give young people a foundation in applicable skills. SDM students from a nearby campus invest their talent, training and time in helping lead at the centers.
Pamoja community centers was a vision of a young SDM couple in Kilifi. The village is predominantly muslim and the imaginary line that runs across the southern portion of Kenya where Sharia Law governs is prominent in Kilifi. The little fishing village is the hub of Kilifi County and thus has a lot of government services along with Pwani University. At the center the team tries to teach classes that will help people get a certificate to be able to get into the tourist industry in the area or find jobs in a local industry. Computer classes, Baking, Foreign Languages, Arts are just a few of the classes that are offered and taught by either staff or students from Pwani U. The second Pamoja sits in the largest slum on the African continent and 2nd largest in the world, Kibera. Only about a mile from the steps of Parliament in Nairobi, the skyscrapers and major highway running through the center of Kibera make for a clash of the ultra rich and families that live on less than $1 a day. 500 people move to Nairobi every day, 500 babies are born in Nairobi every day, and 500 people die everyday in Nairobi. The majority of those call Kibera home at some point in their journey. Pamoja Kibera has identified a people group that is completely shunned from society and one of the largest unreached people groups in the world, deaf and mute. The Staff work with the caregivers of these children in helping them learn how to communicate and care for their children. Their prayer is to help the children reach their full potential and access school. The team also engages the surrounding community support mechanisms and groups in training them in sign language and supporting children with disabilities of all types. Again out SDM Staff do their best to help students engage in the work in Kibera.
Kilifi is a small city located on the Islamic coastal area sitting on the main transportation artery that connects the port city of Mombasa and Lamu island. ACO Campus Staff have been in the area working at Pwani University and Costal Medical Training College. ACO students across East Africa participate in our community investment projects. Bible study groups pick different areas of needs in locations around their campus and spend time each month using their training and gifting to make a difference in the community that surrounds them. Our hope and desire is for students to learn that once they graduate from school and find a job that they can be a “change agent” in the community God places them in.
Kilifi has presented a unique atmosphere in our community investment projects. A combination of the small village feel of the town, our campus staff and the students bring ACO’s community work “closer” than in other cities. Jonathan and Joyce Omolo, ACO Campus Staff, lead a group of students that love engaging in the community that surrounds their university. Working in a local orphanage on a daily basis, engaging young men and ladies on a make shift soccer field near the ACO apartment, investing in their local churches youth program and having an open door policy at their small apartment keeps the Omolo’s swarmed with students. For years they have been praying that God would provide a center for them to utilize their students excitement to empower the next generations through life-on-life experiences and embrace the opportunity to “walk” with those of other faiths.
For many in Kibera, physical disabilities are shrouded in stigma. Some believe witchcraft or personal failures contribute to blindness, deafness, and autism in either themselves or their children.
Pamoja House Kibera seeks to serve the 140,000 people living with special needs in the slums through programs and services. They also bring the healing truth of the Gospel, teaching those they serve that they are not somehow responsible for the disabilities they have.
The staff work with caregivers of deaf/blind children, teaching them how to communicate and care for them. Teaching sign language classes and providing general support for deaf adults. Providing sensory therapy for children with autism and meeting basic needs while also sharing the Gospel.
PAMOJA HOUSE STAFF
NORMAN WABWILE
