Giving Kids A Helping Hand

By Kimberlee Acquaro/Kirinyaga

John Ngata Kariuki, executive director of Sarova Hotels, a leading hotel chain in East Africa, is used to housing high-profile business people, politicians and international dignitaries in style. But last August, as he opened his newest facility, he was uncharacteristically nervous. The people waiting to come through his doors were not his usual patrons. For a moment they just stood and stared, taking in luxury to which they were clearly unaccustomed. Then, with shouts of delight, 20 boys between ages 6 and 13 rushed into their new dormitory bedroom, gleefully threw themselves onto the bunk beds and rolled on the clean, white sheets.

Kariuki's new patrons, many of whom had never had a bed of their own, were getting their first taste of life in Ngata Children's Home, founded by and named after Kariuki, in Kirinyaga, the small village just north of Nairobi where he was born 63 years ago. The modest building will be both their home and their school until they turn 18. It is part of Kariuki's effort to do good and at the same time boost Kenyan tourism--by taking on a small part of a problem the government has been unable to address: dealing with 160,000 homeless kids, many of whom live and sleep on the streets of the capital city of Nairobi, where they beg, steal, sniff glue and commit violence as a means of survival.

From Kenya's point of view, the children are one more threat to the multi-million-dollar-a-year tourist business, already reeling from political and ethnic instability and three years of drought. Driven by poverty and AIDS, which has alone orphaned some 900,000, Kenyan children continue to pour from rural villages into Nairobi, where street crime, according to Nairobi Central Business District Association chairman Philip Kisia, has increased in direct proportion to their numbers. Yet little has been done about them. Says Kariuki: "The government cannot deal with street kids and hopes the private sector--especially the tourism industry--can subsidize government effort."

In order to finance the Ngata Children's Home, Kariuki personally contributed to the costs of construction and to traditional community fund-raising events called harambees, Swahili for "pull together." He pays the monthly salaries for the 18 members of the home's management committee out of his pocket. Additional support comes from the community, which offered the land on which the home is built, as well as from local donors and the Kenyan Charity Sweepstakes. As much as 40% of the funding, however, comes from independent donors outside Kenya. Kariuki is directly involved in fund raising and is working to raise money for everything from electricity (the home is still without it) to computers--and eventually a dormitory for girls. Beyond providing beds, Ngata educates its orphans in employable skills such as carpentry, welding, tailoring and computing.

Taking even one child off the streets helps, but the numbers Ngata can accommodate are a mere drop in the bucket. Kariuki hopes his pilot project will spawn others like it. Since the personal and financial investment is a sizable one that few Kenyans can afford, the success of the idea remains to be seen. In any case, Kariuki's motivations in trying to get the project going are as much personal as they are professional. One of eight children of a Salvation Army preacher and a nurse, Kariuki started his career in marketing. After a decade, eager to work for himself, he and two partners bought Hotel Ambassadeur, the first property in what would become Sarova Hotels. As a successful businessman, he feels a responsibility to the lagging tourism industry; and as a new grandfather and community elder in Kirinyaga, he is conscious of the legacy he will leave. "In some small way," he says, "we want to contribute to Kenya's future. The children of today are the leaders of tomorrow." Sitting in the Ngata dining room with his arm around Philip, a beaming six-year-old who has just been accepted into the home, Kariuki says, "Any one of these kids could be a teacher, a doctor or the future President--if we just give them hope." It will be their eventual success that will give Kenya's business community some prospect for a reversal of the country's current misfortunes.

--With reporting by Simon Robinson/Nairobi

With reporting by Simon Robinson/Nairobi