Mosquito Nets for the Kids

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Cornerstone Methodist Church in Houston has come through again. This time help was needed in the fight against Malaria, an excruciating and potentially deadly disease that is hardest on children.

During the past few months, Mama Margaret said that almost every child in Tenderfeet had missed school at one point or another due to Malaria.

The best way to combat Malaria is by sleeping under a mosquito net at night.

Although a treated net costs only $10, it's money the families can't spare when compared to food or rent.

Moreover, food, water, and charcoal prices have continued to climb. For example, a bag of charcoal in January was around 800 shillings ($12), but now has risen to as high as 1500 shillings ($21). One bag lasts about two weeks. When a family lives on $30-$40 per month, it becomes almost impossible to pay for anything but the essentials, even a mosquito net.

So a Vacation Bible School fundraiser was held at Cornerstone to help the children be able to have the safety and protection of mosquito nets. Over $600 was raised by the VBS kids, which was enough for every Tenderfeet child to get a mosquito net. The first photo shows some of the Kibera kids with the nets, and below shows the Riruta students with the nets (in front of the new school location).

Since the nets were distributed last week, not a single child of Tenderfeet has gotten Malaria. Thank you so much Cornerstone!
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Twitter for Tenderfeet

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I usually speak with Mama Margaret about 30 minutes per week, and there are often numerous interesting little updates, but they are often not included in blog posts even though I would love to share them. For example:

• In Slum Survivors,there was a struggling mother, Carol Warimu. Mama Margaret is tracking her down & a donor has provided assistance for Carol
• Because the weather has been very cold lately, many Tenderfeet kids have gotten sick lately & been treated,including Shadrack,Shiro,& Samwel

These small updates are ideal for Twitter, and a Tenderfeet account has been set up:

http://twitter.com/Tenderfeet

The goal is to have several Twitter updates per week, and for instance, the two updates above have already been turned into "tweets". So follow Tenderfeet on Twitter and get a behind the scenes look at what's happening!
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July Updates

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It's been hectic the last few weeks at Tenderfeet.

In Kibera, Teacher Karen is on leave after having a baby girl. This means the school is getting by with volunteers (teachers in training), but the drawback is they are not always as reliable or hardworking as a wonderful teacher like Karen. Last week, the volunteer didn't show up for school one day, which makes it hard on the staff.

Good news in Kibera is that children like Wickliff and Arian are getting some help. Wickliff and 3 other children have been sharing a bed with no mattress, instead using empty sacks for padding. He also had no boots to wear in the muddy conditions, so a special donation was used to purchase a mattress for Wickliff (see right) and a pair of boots (called "gumboots" in Kenya).

Another child that received assistance was Arian Ogo, who was having trouble seeing the chalkboard in school. Thanks to a special donation, she is going to be able to get glasses.

In Riruta, the school was kicked out of their previous location (where it's been located since February 2008) by the Ministry of Education. A policy exists that school classrooms cannot be located in a residential compound. The idea behind the policy is to prevent young children from accidentally wandering into the wrong door and end up in a potentially dangerous person's room instead of class. Since the Riruta school was in a residential compound, Tenderfeet was given notice that it had to leave by the end of June.

Now the school has moved to a church. The rent is more expensive, and it will be a challenge to cover this in the budget -- as well as all the school expenses, which have been going up this year. So we are more grateful than ever for our friends and sponsors throughout the world who keep the school running strong.