Campaign Story

John Smale Children’s Home is a children’s institution registered in terms of section 31of the Children’s Protection and Adoption Act (Chapter 5:06). Prior to its registration, the home was initially registered as a juvenile correctional centre for children of mixed blood and those of Asian origin, until early eighties when it was transformed into a children’s home for orphans and vulnerable children. Our home administration age is 10 years while our maximum retention is 18 years. It has a maximum carrying capacity of 72 committed pupils. They currently have 56 children, 29 boys and 27 girls.

The home has a dormitory type of accommodation, and the children attend surrounding schools and churches for their educational and spiritual needs respectively. Apart from the formal education offered by schools the home provides life survival skills training such as horticulture, rabbit, poultry rearing, knitting sewing, crocheting, baking and cooking but because of financial problems, the home is often unable to train the children.

Challenges

The current socio-economic environment has severely constrained the home. The home faces several challenges and more so because of its status as a vulnerable institution its vulnerability is higher.

The home has a very good garden where they can get enough vegetables, but the pumping capacity of the borehole is very low, so they need a 2-horsepower single phase pump. They also have a fowl-run which needs renovations, with the hope of getting funding to get chicks and feed for the chicks. The home believes that an opportunity to keep chickens will go a long way in aiding the children as they have proven to be capable in poultry production previously. The home states that it lacks in toiletries like bath soap, washing soap, toothpaste shoe polish, sanitary wear, and stationery on school like A3 scratch books for art and woodwork, both plastic and khaki covers, instruments sets, counter books and pens.