USIU MCN project . Boresha Initiative at Bethsaida Community Centre
The centre was established 3 years ago in Githurai Slums by two well wishers who saw the plight of very young children loitering in the streets. Currently, there are 20 children who found solace in the centre as a home. The centre has been having a lot of issues to tackle with. First, the building is poorly structured thus posing the risk of collapsing. At first this was our agreed plan to try our best to construct a more decent building for them. One of our fellows, Erick, who is good at finance came up with the budget to facilitate this. It turned out to be very expensive given the short time span we had to complete the project. Nonetheless, we were optimistic as we thought of the idea of getting funds from donors. For instance, painting companies, cement companies and iron sheets to sponsor part of it. We identified the companies and three fellows agreed to assist with the proposals writing and sending. Some responses were not very encouraging as most of the companies gave responses in line of the notice being very short and they had already budgeted for their financial year. This marks the continuation of our sustainable project which is to eventually build a shelter for the children. In the meantime, we focused on the following sustainable development goals zero hunger, quality education, no poverty, fitness and well being and partnership for the goals.
Partnership between USIU Africa Millennium Fellows and Beta care Initiative

One of our fellows suggested we partner with one of the community-based organization which he chairs, in order to go offer community service to the children. We worked hand in hand with them, contributed funds and planned as to how the day will be successful. The centre had inadequacy of food and other necessities. We bought them a lot of food supplies and went there to assist with the cleaning as the place was very dirty. We made sumptuous meals for them as they rarely see this. We also had games and activities with them to engage them on health and fitness. It was interesting as some of them want to become footballers and athletes when they grow up. We also gave them a talk on the importance of fitness and well being and encouraged them to be exercising often. We also have a session with one of the fellows who is passionate about mental health awareness who decided to talk to the children as how they can be positive and take care of their minds. This was very important as most of them have had very rough past experiences that have been traumatic hence affecting them till date. She talked to them, we encouraged and mentored them that everything is possible under the sun, their past should not act as a limitation to them and assured them that we will always be there for them by constantly visiting them and interacting with them. We mingled with them and they started opening up to us. We decided to organize a talk for the next session on mental awareness on how to feed the mind positively. We closed the day with donating some essentials including food supplies and toiletries.
Our final project at Bethsaida Community Centre was giving out further contribution to the centre as the needs were weigh beyond. We could not solve all of them but at least we tried all we could. We contributed amongst ourselves together with our friends and managed to buy the children books, uniform and stationeries as the school would be opened eventually and they did not have these. We also bought them food supplies and toiletries. We had another mentorship session mainly to continue our urge for mental awareness and encourage them to dream big. We had playing sessions with them to promote fitness and wellbeing. We discussed at length with the owner of the place as to how we can be able to finally help them construct a better building and we are now working on that