Visit to Lullaby Africa Kisumu is great success

In February, Sue Earnshaw and Helen Howes visited Lullaby Africa in Kisumu for first time since autumn 2019. Helen said, “We feared things may have stagnated during the pandemic. How wrong we were.”

Their first meeting was with our main local leaders – Pastor Joseph and his wife Lilian.

While we had been stuck in the UK during lockdown, Lilian had been working in Siaya (a rural community where she grew up, some 70 kilometres from Kisumu). Lilian still has a home there and used this as a base.

Local leaders build their own groups

We met four of her five leaders there. Lillian has grown groups in the community, identified and taught her own leaders. Lillian and her friend Rose are known as grandmas in the slums! They supervise the women in Kisumu and Siaya.

They were inspiring their peers and the younger women in their communities.

The women in Kisumu learnt to play games with their babies

It was all going so well, Sue and Helen wondered what they could offer. Turned out it was quite a lot.

1.      “We are able to re-affirm their work” - The charity became visible to new leaders; our presence demonstrated the reality of their link with the outside world. They were amazed that people far away were praying for them, supporting them, caring about them. For the first time, they were aware they had value, people appreciated their skills and wanted them to succeed.

2.      “We brought some extra tuition” – especially in the area of child protection and how the women could support other women struggling with life. Sue Earnshaw drew on her life as a health visitor to transfer some of her experiences to the women.

3.      “We talked about difficult things” – confronting tough issues are awkward in their culture. Sue and Helen heard the things they struggled with like:

a.      Providing mats for the floor, so the children could play safely

b.      Negotiating with churches, most of whom were asking the ladies for money to meet on their premises

c.      Sending money to help the leaders go back to the rural

Blown away by leaders’ dedication

They found Lilian was hiring chairs for Lullaby Africa sessions from some of the churches in spite of their own poverty. So the charity funded that.

Helen says, “We were blown away by the dedication of the volunteer leaders who largely Iive hand to mouth themselves. The teaching is established without us.”

We could not do any of this without our supporters in the UK as well. Find out how you can support us here.