Meet Lorite
November 2017

Lorite is currently studying marine business management at Moi University, but she joined Umoja Project when she was in primary school.

Here is a letter she wrote when she was in 7th grade:

I am Lorite. I am in Standard Seven in Bar-Anding’o Primary School. I want to appreciate Umoja services because of its benefits to us.

If you come to our school, you’ll realize that there is a great change since Umoja was introduced.

I leave requesting you to continue helping us…May you continue doing good deeds to us. We are yours and you are ours. So if you can please don’t stop to help us. If you stop, we will nowhere to be seen.

Yours faithfully,
Lorite

 

This summer she wrote a letter update us on her life and how Umoja Project has enabled her to pursue her dreams:

This project took me on board when I was in class three.  This was a point when I was so helpless, confused and had lost hope in life.  In that vulnerable state, I fell into the hands of this powerful project that has always been a wonderful family to me, a helpless kid who used to starve, and to struggle between balancing education and economic issues.

I am a child of a single mother who is a domestic worker. I have been staying with my grandparents who are small scale farmers. Due to the fact that I come from a humble background I suffered some challenges. I had to go with little or sometimes no food which made it difficult to always concentrate in class. At times education involved persevering other pupils’ humiliation by enduring going to school putting on a torn uniform.

At that point all my hope of continuing with my studies past primary school level faded away because I could not see any way through which I could have raised the fee. However, glory be to God because in the midst of all that, this project came to my aid. I began to take lunch in school, the project provided uniforms and sanitary towels, as well. I began feeling a sense of belonging as I could enjoy the gift of life just like any other children.

The great people behind this organization nurtured me and have been molding me all along. It has revived my hope and made my dreams true. It paid my secondary school fees-something that no one else could do and thereafter, it has proceeded to sponsor my higher education, that’s university school fees.

I am so grateful for this. Thanks to the powerful team in Indiana and in Kenya that has always worked tirelessly to look into the welfare of the vulnerable children like me.

You have many times spent sleepless nights just thinking of how I’m faring on. Be blessed for the good work and continue helping more people in the ends of the earth. I have a plan of partnering with this victorious group to expand on its programmes and projects for it to accommodate more people and even extend to other parts of the country.

I shall remain committed and stand strong to defend this great organization that has raised professionals from children. It has raised dead hopes; it has revived lost strength and made ways where there seemed to be no way.  May God’s love unite this family and strengthen it more, as well as see it through the many years to come.

Despite the fact that I have sometimes experienced some tough times in my walk with the project, such as having to let go of the sweet memories of the late mum Ellen Daniels, sister Yvonne and having to miss some important get-together organised for this family due to reasons like being in school or any other commitments, I’m still determined to take the hammer of persistence and drive the nail to success.

May this project stand strong and firm to celebrate such events for many years to come.  My sincere joy and gratitude as I wish a happy 10th anniversary to this great family where love is more than words.

Hear Lorite tell her story: