St. Joseph House of Hope

 

The St. Joseph House of Hope is situated in the village of Majengo that is a suburb of Mombasa. From our hotel it was a travel of around 30 minutes by car to Majengo. Muslims mainly populate the village, which becomes obvious as you can already see the minarets of the large mosque upon arrival at the Main Street leading through the village.

 From the Main Street you basically have to go straight and you will pass many carpentry and small retail shops in the village’s “Shopping Street” which is not drivable by motoric vehicles. For sure, these shops are not shops like they are in Europe. These are more or less wooden sheds, which are often not only the business place of its owners, but also their private living space. The people in Majengo are very welcoming, friendly and curious towards strangers and always willing to show you the way.

 St. Joseph is basically situated in the centre of Majengo. The schoolyard is grassland. The students are aged between 3 and 16. If they are not in class they sing, dance or play football outside or just take a rest. On the schoolyard, goats, sheep and chicken are running around. Standing on the schoolyard you can see a lake, which is not too far away. The schoolchildren are told not to go to the lake as crocodiles live in. I am not sure if that is the truth or the teachers are just concerned that the children will drown while swimming in the lake.

 Carol is the owner of St. Joseph House of Hope. She is very enthusiastic about the school, the children and the various projects the school is involved in. Next to the elementary school lessons, there is also a sewing class, where laptop bags and several clothing items can be produced. Furthermore, there is also the opportunity to produce soap bars with a wonderful and unique African smell. Unfortunately, at the moment Carol has major problems keeping manufacturing these items. All financial resources are spent for the basic lessons, so there are no resources available to be spent for production of the items. Therefore production is standing still and some of the students cannot be taught. Furthermore, the current security issues in Kenya heavily affect the Coast of Mombasa. As mentioned before, Majengo is a Muslim village and therefore target of recruitment of the Al-Shabab militia (the Al-Kaida branch in Kenya’s neighbour country Somalia). Majengo has a high rate of youth unemployment and therefore young adults; especially men represent an easy target for terrorist recruiters.

For the Academic year 2014/2015 ConTribute Kenya has assembled a team that is working on solutions for the St. Joseph House of Hope. In order to make the production line work again, the St. Joseph team is looking for private and corporate donors who are willing to support a re-launch of the production facilities, giving young adults the chance to learn a profession, so they can provide their families with a regular income and showing alternatives to religious radicalism.

 Long-term goal will be to offer the produced items to European customers. We believe that the products produced at St. Joseph have a good quality and deserve a fair chance on the European market. The St. Joseph Team of ConTribute Kenya will therefore set the drive to import and market the products in Europe as soon as the production facilities at St. Joseph are ready to act.