Nairobi Region consists of five countries: Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.
Kenya
AMURT
Kenya has the largest number of Ananda Marga projects and Ananda Marga acaryas in Nairobi Sector. Particularly the emergency relief and development activities of AMURT have developed following our first international relief operation in Somalia in 1993. Now AMURT runs or sponsors 18 projects in the country with the latest one being a 5 year HIV/AIDS Rehabilitation Program in 3 provinces along the East Coast with funding from USAID. Please visit www.amurt.net/kenya to learn more about AMURT’s wide service coverage in Kenya.
Kangemi School
One of the first schools started by Ananda Marga was in 1979 in the peri-urban settlement of Kangemi, about 1 km from our Sectorial Headquarters and home to 100,000 Kenyans. From a two-room tin shed back then, the school now boasts a 2-storey building with 190 high school students and 280 primary school students. Visitors comment that it is the only school they have seen with so many plants!
The School is a refuge for poor children; they come on the weekends to study and to get away from the noise, dirt and crowd in their small homes. A free vegetarian lunch is served every day at the school which is considered to have the highest academic standard of any school in the Kangemi township.
Nairobi Boy’s Home
Along with the Kangemi school, our first children’s home was begun in Mountain View back in the early 1980’s. Currently we have 21 boys under our care managed by Dada Shubhavratanandaji and Dada Jagat Mitraji. The boys whose ages range from 6 to 18 years attend the primary and high school in Kangemi and tend the gareden, and help with domestic chores in their spare time at the Home.
Women’s Welfare Department
The Women’s Welfare Department is running 4 schools in Nairobi with the largest one being the primary school in Huruma Estate now attended by 525 children, managed by Dit S (L) Nairobi, Didi Ananda Giirija.
In Kiambeni, Mombasa, DS (L) Didi Ananda Giitika manages 21 girls in the Children’s Home and a 427 student enrollment in the Ananda Marga Special Academic Institution which opened its doors in 1989.
In Nakuru, Didi Ananda Rupa cares for 38 girls in her Home under the sponsorship of the Nakuru Lioness’ Club. Didi recently collected materials to re-build the roof of her pre-school which provides educational services to 135 children of the locality.
Didi Ananda Ruchira began the Abha Light Foundation in 1997 to provide holistic and low-cost health care to Kenyan citizens. Didi now conducts a 3-year training in Homeopathy and also helps her students to set up their own clinics of which there are currently nine in different areas of Nairobi and upcountry. At her training centre and headquarter, about 60 patients per month come for various types of health care treatment. She is attempting to increase the sale of her homeopathic remedies, herbs and books so as to move towards greater self-sufficiency. For more information visit Didi’s website at: www.abhalight.org
Mombasa
When Dada Jayamaungalananda, DS Mombasa, arrived in 2002 to assume his duties in Likoni he found a 3-acre land covered by dense forest and frequented by criminal elements and unsavory characters. Undaunted, Dada took a determination to build a clinic on the land after seeing a small baby die in its mother’s arms while waiting for a taxi to reach a distant hospital. Likoni has a population of 500,000 with inadequate medical and educational services. Dada won the hearts of his students in the Kenyan Police and Military where he conducts Yoga and Martial Arts Training 15 times per week. Through their regular donations, and through the help of AMURT Italy and some large businesses in Mombasa the Likoni project now boasts a fully-fledged, government-approved medical clinic, a pre-school and a primary school.
On a recent inspection tour, the Ministry of Health judged our Likoni clinic to be the best in the Coast Province. Its 4-member staff serves 110 people daily of which 70% are malaria cases. Another 20 Community Service Workers (CSW) train care-givers to provide home care for HIV/AIDS carriers in their homes. Due to the work of the CSW’s we have also obtained registration with the Ministry of Gender and Social Services which allows us to start Women/Self Help Welfare Groups.
Two hundred children attend the pre-primary school many of whom are single or double orphans of AIDS victims. Dada provides a daily nutritious meal for the children to enable them to adequately follow the school lessons. The primary school has just been completed and already has 125 children studying in 4 primary grades.
So impressed was the local MP with Dada’s work that he leveled and paved the 3 kilometre stretch from our project to the Ferry that links Likoni with the mainland.
Ananda Marga Seva Dal
This service wing of Ananda Marga recently obtained four small plots of land totaling 5 acres in Kikuyu District. It plans to construct a multi-faceted service project such as primary school, rehabilitation Home for Physically Challenged Children and farm following the guidelines of the Master Unit program.
Uganda
We have been operating a primary school in Wasswa village, Mukono District, since 1988. Construction of the school was done in 1998. Before that the children studied under the trees! The primary school now has an enrollment of 255 children and 12 teachers from KG to Primary 7, under the guardianship of Dada Aksovananda. Dada is constantly upgrading the structural and academic standards of the school with income generated from the small farm he began on the 20 acre campus. He now has 25 cows for the Farm which provide fresh milk for his 10 boys in the Home and another 20 boarders. Dada also has a nutritious school feeding program wherein the children receive breakfast and lunch.
Our medical clinic which serves the 450 families of Wasswa village was built in 2009.
The project only obtained a borehole in 2008 which enables Dada to cultivate a small vegetable garden.
A nearby sugar plantation recently provided free grading of the access road of our land which will reduce the difficulties visitors have during the muddy rainy months to reach our project which is situated on a high piece of land overlooking a beautiful green valley.
