It is fascinating the
universe of unpredictable events
that the humble silence of a nimble seed can unleash.
The small, almost invisible, defies the void and springs up to
in the most inhospitable places.
It may be that even without wanting it, that same seed grows crooked,
but in essence it will still be a tree,
and that tree will, one day, feed
with its fruits, it will build with
its wood or provide shelter with its shade.
Sometimes, to change the world, it is enough to
putting the seed in the right hands.
123 Neem seeds
Volunteering is a
a term that we completely confuse.
Professional volunteering is one thing
and another thing is voluntourism.
What they come to Africa to do is voluntourism, to fill up your Instagram
of photos with black children, to say how happy they are with how little they have,
who are always smiling and all that kind of nonsense that gets on my nerves.
I work in Mokowe.
The area of Africa we are in is a very poor area.
Seven out of ten families live below the poverty line.
One in three children does not attend school
and malnutrition
it's a big problem we have here.
Hello!
Reaching the school in Mocowe
is to reach the world of love.
It's a very difficult world, but I see the evolution they are having
children, then that blows my mind.
I work at Lamu Special School, which is the only school there is.
for children with functional diversity throughout Lamu county.
Within BeSocial, I am the field coordinator. I love this place
gives me a little peace of mind.
It has made me realise that I really like children, which I didn't have
than I have spent on it so far, but in the end the world, life,
it puts you in the place you need to be.
I think I am much more socially productive,
which is what I really like.
I had never thought of it as social production.
I like it.
These are the school's facilities.
The school is a boarding school, the dormitory for the girls, who only have
one, and there is the bedroom of the children, who are divided
into autonomous children
and in children who need help.
Well, here we have Abderramani, my beautiful boy.
Abderramani is the seed of this project.
Abderramani's reaction when he reached this
school was brutal because as soon as I arrived,
there was a child listening to music with a speaker, I will never forget it,
and said to him: Come, and the two of them sat down on a wall
to listen to the music.
A minute and a half later the two of them were dancing and Abderramani came running
towards us and towards his mother and said:
Mamalú.
I don't want to go back to the other school, I want to stay here.
A minute and a half.
For many years, Abderramani did very well at school
in which he was, but there came a time when he was already a bit of a misfit.
The children bullied him, they gathered round him and said: "You're crazy!
mad
and he couldn't be in that place any more, so we decided that we
had to find him a school.
Then we knew we had found a home for Abderramani.
a place where I would be understood, accepted, a place to which
he belonged and where he was going to be happy.
Here we have the kitchen and here we have the dining room.
Water is one of the biggest problems we have here.
There are three different wells inside the school.
This is one of them, that the water that comes out of here is salt water.
This is the one we would use for washing clothes,
for all that, for hygiene.
We have all the pipes to collect rainwater, which is better than water from
rain goes to these tanks, to three tanks that we have connected to the kitchen.
So, with this rainwater, which they drink and with which we cook.
This school is like a home where everything happens
that would happen in their house.
It's something that shocks us quite a lot, but the children here,
from when they are very
little ones, they do the washing.
My name is Juliette Ali.
And I study at Lamu Special School
I like playing with my friend Florence.
we usually help out in the kitchen
I'm learning to weave raffia
I love mamaLu because whenever we ask her for something she tries
to get it however she can
There are 123 children enrolled at the school.
Most of them are children who live here.
And then we have some cases of children who come and go every day, but
sleep at home, as in the case of Sume.
Sume lives very close by
from the school, about 20 metres away,
in a house built of mud and sticks.
He lives with his mother and she doesn't have a steady job, so she works.
of what comes out. One day she washes clothes here, the next
day she sews over there.
And with what he earns he is able to provide for his family.
and in Sume's case, we know that she is very well looked after
and is very much loved.
Unfortunately, not all cases are like that of Sume's family.
Body parts. Again, body parts
Ear
Hair, Mouth.
Applause, OK. Anyone else?
Lamu, together with Tana Riber,
are the two counties with the lowest level of education in the whole of Kenya.
For the classes here, within the school,
what we provide them with are the materials that the teachers ask us for.
The one who asks us for the most resources is Madame Faridah, who is a teacher
ideal and super creative.
I like helping these children because they are just like other children
I really like being at this school to help these children
to become someone else
So that they can help themselves and help their community in general
It's more difficult at this school because the parents
they don't help the children. Because they have that stigma
by the community. Even the community doesn't want to hear about these children
They bring the children here like a rubbish tip, they don't help.
It may be that communities can hide them because they do not embrace diversity
They do not embrace disability
Some can hide them in their homes
Families don't want to be stigmatised by their child's disability
Society in this place looks at these children as
a bad omen for his family.
Then the family might do something wrong,
that's why he punishes children.
Come on, sit down!
Above all, it's always someone else's fault
of women, for starters.
They often believe it is divine punishment from the devil or whoever.
What happens is that here families see children see each other
like life insurance.
You look after them when they are young and give them an education and they
look after you when you are old.
they will look after you and give you money.
It is very difficult for our children to become completely
independent and also give money to their parents.
As a result, families don't want to invest money in them,
they don't want to pay for the school because they know they won't get in
to receive anything in return.
My dream for this school is to have a pre-school and primary school
so that everyone in the community
want to bring the student here
So that they can acquire more skills
So that the community can consider this school to be
perfect for each and every student. But if we receive more aid
in this way we will move these children from one situation to another
so that they can be accepted by the community
How are you? Fine!
Shindo
How are you, dear?
Art class is a marvellous place.
The most marvellous thing about art class is Shindo.
When I was a child, I had this passion
of teaching other people things
When I played as a child I wanted to be the leader of the group
That's why I have this passion, but I wanted it to be special
That's why I ventured into special education
I feel like he was calling me
It's incredible because until recently this class
wasn't there, just like the other workshops.
We want to ensure that they learn trades and once they finish school,
can develop and have autonomy and a job of their own.
It is going to change their lives for sure
Most of them, when they came here to class
it is possible that they could not read or write
That they were not capable of expressing themselves
They didn't know how to communicate with each other or with me
But over time his behaviour has changed a little because
they tell you if they want to do this or feel like drawing this
And what's more, through art, our children are able to express
emotions that they normally would not, they are able to concentrate,
above all also because Shindo is
able to bring out the best in them.
The places where we have intervened from BeSocial
within this school, have been first and foremost, the kitchen.
Well, the kitchen was a mess, I don't know why they called it a kitchen.
I didn't think it could be a kitchen, it was just cooking on the
floor, it was dirty.
Then the class, which at the beginning we called yoga,
which is now the gym.
Mr Abdala's classroom has an annexe, which is
now the multisensory classroom.
The Kenyan curriculum for children with functional diversity barely includes
different than for normative children.
We have decided to support them in the trades.
They gave us a big lesson, we divided it in two and we did,
on the one hand, the art class and, on the other hand, the workshop class,
where we do the hairdressing, sewing and crafts workshops.
I feel very proud of all the facilities because I know what it has
side to get them, both economically and physically as well as emotionally.
But the one we like the most, the most, the most, the most, and we
know that it has changed the
The children's favourite place is the gym. Hi James.
James is our person Our everything here.
He is the one who starts all the projects.
The nutrition project began, but now it is completely focused
in the physiotherapy project.
BeSocial is helping my brother who is at university
studying nursing and he is also very happy
When we started the physiotherapy project,
there were some children who couldn't walk
Some were having problems with their hands and now they are walking very well
and very happy going everywhere
He makes groups with all the children
and specific rehabilitation with some.
His star child, the one he works best with and with whom we have achieved
Some really cool stuff is with Jamesa.
Jamesa is a child about whom we feel very
proud, first of all, because it sets an example to the rest
of the children for their great capacity for fighting and bravery,
It's like coming full circle, giving opportunities to children who in principle
are outside society, to become involved in it again
and that he will end up fully integrated, working in whatever he wants to do.
Most of the children at this school are boarders and then we have
other children who, despite being hospitalised here,
they don't spend most of their life here.
Jamesa studies at Mokowé Primary school.
So the change from Jamesa to going to that school was brutal.
Bye!
It was clear that there had to be a project
of physiotherapy that would help them improve the quality of their lives.
The most spectacular case is that of Jamesa, who has a shortened leg.
His family thought he couldn't go to school and BeSocial sponsored him
and we started to run it together with Anidah Hospital
and the Pablo Horstmann Foundation to all the doctors I needed.
He couldn't be operated on, but we could fit him with a brace.
How was your day at school?
It went well
What do you feel now?
Cold skin
A completely normal child.
At school they accept his condition without any problem and he is
super happy to be able to have a completely normal life.
That we are worried because we don't
we know what's wrong with Gichuki
On Monday it was no longer well.
No Monday was fine
And is he having convulsions? Yes
He had a seizure and fell to the ground
It is a child is a child who is
epileptic and who appears to be having convulsions.
We have many epileptic children.
So, the problem is that when they go home
, we are not sure that they will be given the medication.
Whenever they come back it's when they have crises, when they have problems.
So, we are never sure if they have been given to him well or badly.
My mum told me that I had given her the medicine but it's not true
It's not normal
There is a fairly high percentage of children
for those who suffer,
because we know that they will not be in good condition at home,
they are not going to be looked after.
Those who take medication do not give them the medication.
It's all a bit disastrous.
We'll take him to the hospital. Next week we'll go with two of them.
Next week we're also going with Gichuki
When the school closes,
feelings are mixed because we know that there are children who suffer
physical abuse in their homes.
It is difficult to understand, well, it is not understandable,
and we try not to judge it because it is the society in which they have lived,
in which they have been brought up, where children are mistreated
is almost standardised and for children with disabilities, much more so.
We have a hard time and every time the school opens, I
And I see that the children are coming back, It gives me
extra tranquillity and happiness.
We have James
who is unpacking all the vegetables that have arrived for the week
We spend approximately 120 euros on vegetables alone, or
150 euros a week, just for the vegetables.
Julius, what are you doing?
What are you doing?
Julius is one of our most beautiful children.
Julius was a child you couldn't get close to and now you can't tear
yourself away from him,
which we love.
We think he is 13 years old.
But we don't know because very few people here have a birth certificate.
Julius, you bet!
He is a spectacular child, the child that every
the person who comes falls in love with him.
Julius, when I arrived at this school, he was a shy child, he never came close,
He was always afraid of being hit, you couldn't do any activities with him.
Julio is going to plant another moringa tree today.
Little by little, through play, the music he loves,
we have been getting closer, closer.
Now Julius is a fun-loving, affectionate child.
He has received so much love that he also wants to give a lot of love.
He has also changed his behaviour with all his colleagues.
It has become a leader.
One of the most painful days I have experienced at this
school is when the mother
Julius's father came to look for his brother Michael, who was also on this
school, without even greeting Julius without even paying any attention to him,
without even trying to take him or console him.
I have never heard anyone cry in such a sad, heartfelt way.
From that day on, James and I devoted ourselves exclusively to it.
to give him all the love he needed.
That was when we discovered and reaffirmed that love moves
mountains and that love changes everything.
That my boys and girls eat a balanced diet,
that means they are going to be healthier, that when they have problems
they are going to have
better defences, that they like food more,
that they broaden their minds to eating other types of food, but
above all it means health.
Ok, but
I don't usually think much, but when I stop to think it blows my mind
the great capacity to adapt from the very first minute that I have
had on this site.
OK so this is impossible this week, but...?
Well, look, if you come, I have
I am basically a patient person.
But here you work on patience to indescribable limits.
Mira Dewa
It's the way I look.
And this one here, you scoundrel, has stolen my glasses.
Give them to Adrián, they're mine.
Give me the glasses, come on.
I think I'm coping more or less, I'm adapting.
Dewa.
No, if now
Oh, the glasses. And there are times when I have to take a deep breath.
Many times.
Irungu.
When we arrived, he did not allow any, any, any, any, any physical contact
and little by little we have been working with him.
And now the first thing I get when I arrive at this school is always a hug,
admit much more physical contact, more with women than with men.
His stepfather mistreats him when he goes home.
So, it's a story that is a bit
It's very tough.
The last time he went home he ran away and Because it is precisely from mistreatment
his stepfather and he disappeared for two and a half months.
And over here we have Yuma.
In the community they call it a miracle.
Three years ago, Yuma wasn't walking, he was just dragging himself along.
And now, Yuma can walk perfectly and this is
it's thanks to all the work the physicists have done, the work James has done,
the work done by the local physiotherapists and especially Yuma.
Although he is a bit lazy, he has worked a lot.
Eh, Yuma?
Yescome on...
Well, for my boys and my girls I feel a lot of love.
Sometimes I am amazed at the strong bond we have created.
I find it incredible that there are people who reject their own
families or within society.
And the truth is that, as I come every day,
I see them as completely normative boys and girls.
In other words, I don't see much difference.
Some children can't talk, other children drool,
other children walk normally.
But in my mind that is no longer there.
In my mind there are a thousand boys and a thousand girls who are more
beautiful than all the others.
"Although I can't move, in my mind I am free"
Stephen Hawking