Happy Life Story

Sharon Emecz

Description

This fully updated edition of The Happy Life Story tells the history of an inspiring children's home project near Nairobi, Kenya. It is told through the eyes of Sharon Emecz, who after twenty years on the corporate treadmill in London, took a career break and spent a month in Africa including volunteering at Happy Life. The Children's Home was founded in 2002 to "Provide the abandoned children of Kenya with a Home and a Hope for adoption." This is the heart-warming story of a small group of people saving the lives of hundreds of Children and arranging for many of these children to be adopted into "Forever Homes". Since 2002 over 500 children have been rescued with 300 being adopted.Happy Life Children's Home now has 3 missions: To rescue and enable adoptions; to provide a Christian education, and to provide pediatric care in the Jesse Kay Children's Hospital. To accomplish this mission there are 2 Campuses: one campus is for infants to 3 years of age and the Hospital while the other campus is for the children who are 3 years and older. At this campus there is a church, Happy Life Christian School, and 3-bedroom homes for the children.The first edition was completed when Sharon and her husband, Steve, returned from their 2nd Christmas at Happy Life. This new edition shares the great progress from 2014-2018. There are new stories, case studies, and news about the School and the Children's Hospital. All royalties from the book go to Happy Life Children's Home. More information is available at the Web Site: "happylifechildrenshome.com".Enjoy the "STORY" and come to visit!

Sujets

• Charities
• Sociologie, société et politique
• Kenia
• Charitable organization
• Adoption
• Kenya

Informations

• Publié par: Andrews UK
• Date de parution: 28 mars 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781787052703
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

The Happy Life Story
Saving abandoned children on the streets of Nairobi
2nd Edition
Sharon Emecz
Edited by Steve Emecz




2018 digital version converted and published by
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
First edition published in 2015
© Copyright 2015, 2018
Sharon and Steve Emecz
The right of Sharon and Steve Emecz to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998.
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without express prior written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted except with express prior written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended). Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damage.
Although every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information contained in this book, as of the date of publication, nothing herein should be construed as giving advice. Any opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of MX Publishing.
MX Publishing
335 Princess Park Manor, Royal Drive, London, N11 3GX
www.mxpublishing.com
Cover design by Brian Belanger



2nd edition update
Directors (2018): “When the Lord prompted us to begin this ministry to the abandoned children of Kenya in 2002, we never imagined how He would prosper and grow the ministry. We thank all the Happy Life partners for their love of the children of Kenya and for their support which has made this possible.
We especially acknowledge that this ministry is a work of the Lord. It is His love for the children that has inspired and motivated us to be his servants to the weak and poor.
“It is the Lord’s doing and it is marvelous in our eyes.”
- Psalm 118:23


(Left to right: Sharon, Jim, Peter and Faith)



Happy Life 2014
Happy Life is a children’s home in the suburb of Kasarani in the capital city of Kenya, Nairobi. They rescue abandoned children from the streets, some of whom are orphans. There are around forty children aged 0–3 years at the main home in Kasarani. The organization has also expanded out into Juja Farm (a small village near Juja, North of Nairobi) with another home with sixty children aged 3–11 years, a church and a school.
The mission statement is:
“Providing the abandoned children of Kenya with a home and hope for adoption”



Introduction
Chiumbo is nearing the end of his ten hour shift collecting garbage in the Kibera slum and he is exhausted. He’s about to throw a clutch of carrier bags onto the wagon when he hears a noise.
He pauses - there is the sound again, coming from one of the plastic bags. He carefully lifts the rubbish from on top of what he can now see is a baby boy whose cries are growing faint.
Wrapped around the tiny infant’s bruised neck is a piece of rope where it looks like he has been strangled, and the placenta is still attached. Chiumbo calls over one of the other collectors. “Mtoto (infant)” says Chiumbo. Carefully they unwind the rope and Chiumbo grabs a cloth from the truck and wraps the baby in it. An hour later and the baby is at the hospital and a call is made to one of the many children’s homes in the area.
This scene is one that is played out many times a day, dozens of times a week and hundreds of times a month.
This book tells the story of Happy Life, one of the amazing organizations making a difference in the lives of abandoned children in Nairobi.


Benaiah
[his name means ‘God Builds’]
Beniah is the young baby in the story above. He’s a very affectionate baby and is still at Happy Life in Kasarani happy and healthy.



How this book came about
This book tells the story of one special children’s home - ‘Happy Life’ based in the Kasarani suburb of Kenya’s capital city Nairobi.
The story is told by Sharon Emecz, who after twenty years on the corporate treadmill in the UK took a career break and ended up at the Happy Life rescue centre. Sharon describes the impact that the experience has had:
[Sharon] Many people use the phrase ‘life changing’ when they have volunteered in areas with high levels of poverty but for me personally, that’s the wrong term. A better way of describing what happened to me is ‘perspective changing’. Do I still live in London with my job and comfortable life? Yes. Am I more fundamentally grateful for the hand that life has dealt me? Absolutely. Do I have a better appreciation for the situation in places like Kasarani - I really hope so. To see what the team at Happy Life have achieved in such a short space of time has been wonderful - and to play a small part in that is very rewarding.
Once I decided to take three months off work, I approached one of the international voluntary organizations VSO, who came up with a couple of options - one of which was Happy Life. I spent the month of January taking my TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) qualifications and headed to Kenya in February. As part of the trip I organized a game drive out into the game parks of Kenya and Tanzania and finished off with a brief visit to Zanzibar. I’m a big advocate of combining some travel with volunteering. Kenya is such a beautiful place and I felt it was vital to see some of the country and wildlife.
[Sharon] The first visit to Happy Life was quite intensive as everything was new and having some travel at the end of my time in Africa worked extremely well. I visited some places that I may never have gotten to in my life and I’d encourage anyone to add something similar on to the end of their volunteering trip.
I was very keen to come back and also felt that the experience would be something that would appeal to my husband, Steve. I asked the team at Happy Life when would be the best time to come back to bring my husband, and they immediately suggested Christmas;
[Sharon] It’s obvious when you think about it, but many charitable organizations struggle to get volunteers over the Christmas holiday period - understandable as most people will spend that time with their families. So I took Steve for three weeks over Christmas and New Year 2013.
Volunteering together was an opportunity that Steve jumped at;
[Steve] I’d heard all about Happy Life from Sharon, and having travelled quite widely in the developing world including India, Bangladesh and South America, I thought I’d take the conditions in my stride - I didn’t. The word that comes to mind for me most is ‘humbling’. Losing electricity and running water for days at a time was totally alien to me, but everyday life for the kids in the rescue centre. I hadn’t come across a happier bunch of kids in my life. Those everyday things, like cancelled trains that used to wind me up, just seem so trivial when you see what these kids have been through, and what they deal with on a daily basis.
As soon as we arrived back in the UK, we booked our plane tickets for the next year. We were also keen to find a way to do something ongoing to create some sources of income all year round. We came up with the idea for the book and also began weaving some fundraising into our charity work with our publishing company and into the events we run through the year.
The final edits to version one of this book took place in December 2014 when we returned to Happy Life. Much progress can seen in the 2nd edition 2014–2018.


Happy Life Kasarani (2014)


Happy Life Juja Farm (2014)



Kenya
[Sharon] In this chapter I take a brief look at the country as a whole, the economy, then drill down to get to know the area surrounding Happy Life.
Nestled on the coast of Africa, Kenya is a country of great contrasts. On the one hand it’s one of the most important economies in the region, on the other it is the home to huge amounts of poverty. The majority of visitors to Kenya either come for business to the capital city of Nairobi, or for tourism to the coastal resorts like Mombasa. It is, however, the wildlife that draws the most visitors with some of the world’s most stunning safaris.


A rhino in the wild (from my safari photos)
From the Masai Mara to Amboseli, Kenya has incredible scenery and wildlife.
Economy
[Sharon] Next I take a look at Kenya’s economy.
According to the World Bank, Kenya has a population of just over 44 million, with around 46% of the population living below the poverty line. Three-quarters of the population are employed in the agriculture sector. About half of the production is subsistence, the rest goes for export with tea, coffee, corn and wheat as the main items.
Since its independence in 1963, Kenya has become a hub of economic activity for sub-Saharan Africa with Nairobi becoming the main financial capital. The Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE) is the fourth largest in Africa. Investment into the country has increasingly come in recent years from China and Russia.


Nairobi Skyline
The services sector contributes over 60% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and is dominated by tourism.
It is one of the most important economies in Africa and, apart from several dips due to terrorist activity, has shown good economic growth. It is the fourth largest economy in Africa behind Nigeria, South Africa and Angola.
According to the World Bank, economic output is around 4.76 trillion shillings ($53.1bn; £32.8bn).
[Sharon] Not long after my first visit to Happy Life the country went thr