A group from Pepperdine University’s University Church and Malibu High School is traveling to Kenya to serve with Maid in the Streets (MITS), an organization that helps rescue children from the streets of Nairobi. The group, led by church youth minister Dusty Breeding, plans to spend two weeks staff on numerous activities to offer aid to former street children, as well as those who are still living on the streets.
“These are children whose future is bleak merely by the place of their birth… They are abandoned by broken homes,” Hung Le, an elder with the University Church and the registrar for Pepperdine, said. “Made in the Streets rescues these children, one by one, rehabilitates them, provides them with a safe place to live and food to eat. They educate them and provide them with practical trade skills. They also help them find work when they graduate at the age of 18.”
Many local children and families have participated in a variety of activities to help the children of MITS. Webster Elementary School students conducted a sock and underwear drive and collected more than 750 items for the children that the Pepperdine and Malibu High group will bring with them. AYSO, local soccer clubs and Malibu High students donated more than 180 pairs of soccer cleats and numerous soccer uniforms that will be used for a soccer camp in Nairobi.
While on the trip, the group will host the Vacation Bible School, soccer camp and work to improve the MITS farm and make it more sustainable, as well as enhance MITS’ work in education and skill training, all with the help of funds donated by local families.
Additionally, the group will aid the continuing Bread for the Streets program, during which youth who are in the catering class bake breads and bring it to children still living on the streets.
The group will also work at the MITS preschool, visit the slums of Mathare Valley and the “bases,” or homes, of the street children of Eastleigh in Nairobi.