Arise and Shine

Offering material and emotional support to young girls facing pregnancy without resources. 

Eunice Ombati, your project is one of the ten community projects that the Institut Cerba has chosen to support in 2021. Can you present it to us?  

The ‘Arise and Shine’ program was set up in 2005 at the Adventist Care and Support Centre in Nairobi, in response to the many requests for assistance from destitute young girls who are pregnant or have just given birth. We help them by funding medical care during their pregnancy, as well as the delivery and postnatal care, and likewise the purchase of care products for their babies. Also, by paying school fees and arranging childcare for their young children, we encourage them to return to school. Often these girls lose all vision of their future when they find out they are pregnant. We try to support them by providing for their material needs, but also by giving them hope and the possibility to build a future.  
 

Can you tell us what led you to become involved in this association?   

For me, it all started in 2015. I had just paid my children’s school fees when a call for help went out in our community about a child who was going to be taken out of school due to lack of funds. This tore my heart and so I got some friends together. Between us, we were able to raise the money that was needed. It was then that I decided to volunteer at the Adventist Centre to help other young people in need. Since then, I have become one of the coordinators of the 'Arise and Shine' program specifically for young girls who fall pregnant and who do not have adequate family support.  

This commitment of yours to helping the destitute, how rewarding do you find it?  

Helping these young girls in need gives me great satisfaction, and joy too. I feel that I am showing them that a future is still possible when they thought they were lost. It is particularly heart-warming the way some of them turn out, like the young girl I helped who managed to continue her studies all the way through to university. She now has a job, and over the years our two families have built a strong relationship.  

How do you feel about receiving this prize from the Institut Cerba?  

I am grateful to the Institut Cerba for this great support and encouragement to our project. The generous donation will enable us to provide for the needs of about fifty girls aged between 12 and 18 years old and dealing with pregnancy. I am especially pleased that this assistance has come at a time when the Covid-19 crisis has affected the finances of many of our regular donors.