Ray of Sunshine Foundation Ltd
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Mission Statement
The Ray of Sunshine Foundation is an Irish registered charity based in Co. Clare, Ireland. The Ray of Sunshine Foundation will bring volunteers from all over Ireland to the poorest of the poor in underdeveloped countries having special regard for the plight of children particularly in their educational needs. We will undertake building projects such as schools to empower children through education and give them a chance at a brighter and better future to improve their quality of life and give them a chance to get out of the poverty trap. Our projects will be mainly based in Kenya.
About This Cause
Our 2016 Project will be based in the North Side of Mombasa. Kenya remains a source, transit, and destination country for people being trafficked for forced labour and sexual exploitation. Last year, reports indicated that more 9 million children had been trafficked within and out of the country for domestic servitude, street vending, agricultural labour, and sexual exploitation. Furthermore, Kenyan men, women, and girls are trafficked to the Middle East, other African nations like South Africa, Western Europe and North America to provide domestic services, for enslavement in massage parlours and brothels, and manual labour. Recently, Kenya was placed on the Tier 2 Watch List due to lack of evidence of increasing efforts to combat severe forms of trafficking. Despite positive steps to assess the human trafficking threat to Kenya nationals in the Middle East and to support the establishment of a code of conduct against child sex tourism, an almost complete lack of law enforcement efforts severely impeded the government’s ability to effectively combat trafficking in persons. It seems sexual trafficking is not about to end. Reports indicate that human trafficking generates incomes of more than 10 billion dollars annually. With such figures, it is clear that traffickers will continue to do everything in their power to safeguard their extremely profitable operations. It is up to the government to sensitize its law enforcement officers on human trafficking and to improve its ability to monitor and collect data on anti-trafficking interventionsMtwapa is in North coast, Kilifi County, Kikambala with a population of 24,000 people and it has been described as the most prevalent human trafficing town in Kenya. Hence, the Ray of Sunshine Foundation have chosen this area for a building project in 2016 where we will build a Rescue Centre which will be a safe haven for these children. Due to HIV, Coast region has close to 125,000 Orphans and vulnerable children. These children orphans after death of their parents due to HIV are victims of child trafficking, commercial sex, and child labour and not able to access basic needs like formal education and health care services due to poverty or absence of parental care. Worse still they grow up in hostile conditions and many of them find themselves in the streets or trafficked. In some cases parents, relatives and close family friends are involved in child trafficking, labour or abuse. In this case children find themselves in very difficult situations because their perpetrators are people they trust. PROFILE OF TWO CASES MARIA & JOSEPH Maria and Joseph are two children trafficked from different areas and rescued from their abusers MARIA* is 12 years old and comes from western Kenya over 1200Km west of Mombasa near Kenya Uganda border. Her father died when she was five years old and her brother was only two years but sickly. When she was 10 years and in primary school class 3, the mother died too and she was left under care of her aged grandmother. She had to drop out of school to her grandmother with the house hold work because her brother was on and off hosp due to poor health. After one year and few months, a cousin to their mother came home for Christmas holidays. Her brother’s health had improved and was on treatment which the doctor attending him said he should neither skip nor stop taking. Maria was ready to go back to school but needed school uniform, grandmother requested her niece to help Maria get back to school. She requested to take Maria with her to Mombasa where she lives and find Maria a good school. This how Maria found herself in Mtwapa stranded and the “aunty “who took her from her maternal home disappeared after handing her over to a group of other girls who shared a small room with no beds but mats for sleeping. Maria was sold to strangers for sexual exploitation. She was rescued a month after she was introduced to this traumatizing business by social workers. She was badly injured and was admitted to the hospital for four days and discharged through the same social work to a centre where she continued to receive medical and psychological treatment. It was difficult to trace Marias “aunty” because she only knew her as Faith and met her for the first time when she visited them at home. JOSEPH Joseph* is eight years of age and has never been to school. He does not know his parents. He only remembers the ceremony with many people where his older brother cried uncontrollable when people were pouring soil in a deep pit with a box inside. “Funeral” this was the funeral of their mother who died when he was only 24 months old. The two boys and their mother lived in a single room in an informal settlement in Mombasa town. His brother could not continue with his education and moved to Mtwapa town to entertain tourists. The two boys were hosted by friends to the brother. Joseph could not explain the kind of work his brother does. With time the brother stopped coming home and Joseph was staying with the strangers. During the day he was seen by neighbours playing with their children. One day while playing with Brian, another boy whom he says was big, offered Joseph some sweets and led him to a nearby house where he molested him. ‘’ he pushed me down and started hurting me. He had his hands in my mouth and I could not shout. It was dark so I slept on the floor. In the morning he was not in the room so I walked out.” A woman passing by saw the young boy walking with difficulty and when she approached him, he seemed to have diarrhoea. When she asked Joseph the problem, he looked scared and in pain. On assessment she could not believe what she found out. She took the boy to the hospital. Joseph through children’s officers was taken to a children’s home. He could not control his call of nature and had to undergo several operations before he was well. After some months in rehabilitation and psychosocial support, he enrolled in class one and we hope he will catch up with education. *Not real names We know the Ray of Sunshine and all its supporters we can make a difference to these childrens lives.