A Stand-in Mother for 6 Children at the age of 76.

Joyce is at an age where most of us would hope to be able to ease back on work and start to relax and enjoy a deserved retirement after a long hard working life. This is not the case for Joyce, who still works, producing charcoal which local families use mainly for everyday cooking. It is very hard demanding work and has left Joyce with illnesses that make just looking after herself very difficult. But Joyce doesn't just look after herself: she also is 'mum' to her 6 grandchildren whose ages range from 4 years to 17.

(From left to right:)

Austine (17) Fredrick (6) Michael (7) Emmaculate (12) Joylene (4) and Joyce in Yellow.

Winnie (14) was visiting her Mum when the photo was taken.

Joyce had 4 daughters and a son and the grandchildren are from different mums. But not all the grandchildren's parents are still alive. Hence Joyce is vital to the survival of all of them.

All the children go to primary school except Austine whose final primary KCPE (exam) results were good enough to get him a place at the local secondary. Austine's good results would then have given Joyce a major 'headache'! She now had to get him a full uniform and fees for the whole 4 years to complete his schooling. However the vast majority of students with a successful KCSE(secondary) pass tend to get on to higher education courses or even get good jobs straight after school. If this happened, Austine could take over, looking after his 'siblings' from Joyce.

Austine would have been considered for SSF help had we known about him earlier but having filled all our available sponsorship slots, Tom Bilo who coordinates the school fees allocation then persuaded SSF to take another very needy new Form 1 so we are already over our subscribed total! We will manage and so will Joyce and Austine, at least for the next month as one donor has just supplied funds for the next month's fees and enough spare cash to buy two big bags of food (see family photo above) for all of them. So if anybody reading this knows of a new potential sponsor please get in touch. Any monthly subscription, no matter how small will make a big difference to Joyce and the amazing job she is doing for these 6 children.