I first learned of the Mama Fatuma Goodwill Children’s Home on a trip to East Africa, the birthplace of my parents and grandparents, in July 2010.  Through my uncle, who has lived his whole life in Nairobi, Kenya, I heard of the many good things being done by the orphanage and decided to pay them a visit.

With help from my taxi driver we eventually found the orphanage, which is located near the edge of the Mathare neighbourhood of Nairobi, one of Africa’s largest slums.  I introduced myself as a visiting Canadian and a staff member kindly gave me a tour of the facilities.

After having done volunteer work in different cities in the developed world, I was immediately impressed by how much the orphanage achieves with so little.  On what is a tight budget by Western standards, the orphanage has a fully functioning kitchen, classrooms, and lodging for the children.  In addition, although like many other charities the Orphanage has religious inspiration behind it, the clear priority is to care for children with nowhere else to turn and to give them a fair chance in life.  As such, the children currently at Mama Fatuma’s and those who have resided there in the past hail from different religious backgrounds, bound together by broad teachings of good values.

At the end of the tour, I donated what change I had with me and decided to find a way to raise more money for the orphanage upon returning to Canada.  I eventually decided upon running in the Toronto Marathon to raise much-needed funds for the orphanage.  Although I’ve never attempted any kind of long distance running challenges, this seemed like the best way to inspire people to donate to a worthy cause (after all, no one would donate for me playing soccer or running the 100m dash!).

I used Facebook and other online media to spread the message and direct friends and family to donate to Mama Fatuma’s US Foundation through Justgive.org.  By making it as easy as possible for them to donate online in local currency I gave them a clear means to express their generosity – leading to a fundraising total of over USD $2,600 for the orphanage.  Though the run was naturally quite tough, I’m overjoyed that – thanks to the generosity of my friends and family – we were able to raise a large sum for a worthwhile charity that does good work giving Kenyan orphans a chance.

-Tariq Fancy, November 2010

More than 50 people queued outside of Mama Fatuma’s new vocational training  building for a free medical clinic in which nearly 300 patients from the community were seen and treated on Saturday June 28th.  Two volunteer doctors examined patients and wrote prescriptions filled in a full pharmacy that was also set up on the premises.  The most common ailments included ringworm, intestinal worms and parasites, respiratory infections, micronutrient deficiencies, and malaria.  In addition, another clinician was in attendance training Mama Fatuma’s staff, and community members in first aid, including CPR. The event was well attended by members of the Mama Fatuma board of directors, friends and well wishers.  Check out the photos of the event!

Mama Fatuma’s Fahad Abdallah has graduated secondary school with nearly perfect marks on his Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE- Kenya’s equivalent to the SAT or ACT).  Through the hard work and dedication of the staff and directors at Mama Fatuma we have been able to secure an educational scholarship for Fahad to study medicine in Turkey.