WE ARE ALFAJIRI STREET KIDS

About Us

Alfajiri (Swahili for daybreak) is a Not for Profit Organisation founded specifically for art creation. Alfajiri offers an art therapy based outreach program and empowerment programs aimed at street children and at high risk vulnerable children and youth especially those living in the streets and slums of Nairobi. Alfajiri Street Kids Art is a registered community based organization that was founded and is currently directed by Lenore Boyd, an artist and a volunteer who came to Kenya working with missionary of charity fathers. Lenore later felt the need to help the street kids out of the street and help them find a better life. It is clear to anyone who spends time with the kids on the street that this is a life of destitution, hunger, desperation and rejection that no one should have to live.

It does not take much to smile and show respect to these children and to give them a hope for the future. Thus the organization strives to support these street kids by giving them a chance to create their own artwork and find their dignity. Their work will be exhibited in art galleries in Nairobi and eventually around the world. The Alfajiri Kids are looking forward to sharing their thoughts and ideas and hopes in their artwork. From this, Alfajiri also aims to find them a safe place to go,a loving and caring home and give them empowerment and good education.

In Kenya there are estimated 250, 000 children living on the streets and 60, 000 in Nairobi, (United Nations data 2015). They are abandoned or forced to flee to the street because of poverty and neglect in their families.

photograph BTO X Alfajiri by Joost Bastmeijer

In Alfajiri, we seek viable solutions. The Alfajiri Kids are passionate about sharing their thoughts, ideas and hopes in their artwork and starting a journey of healing and restoration. From this, Alfajiri also aims to find them a safe place to go, empowerment to create a future full of possibilities in a society fraught with dangers, poverty and snares.

Our Motto

We are talented, creative, intelligent kids but forgotten. We are Kenyan. We have dreams and long for a future. A future where we can have a home and can be accepted and respected for just being who we are, kids just like yours. We have dreams, that one day we will be independent and find a way to have a job, a career and find our families. They will see that we are worthy and we have so much to offer. This is our dream.

Vision and Mission

Mission

A world where street children discover and are
given their true worth.

Vision

Reach street children through art creation and discover our common humanity.

Inspired by Mother Teresa’s outreach to the poorest of the poor.

Our History

Alfajiri Street Kids Art was founded in 2015 by Lenore Boyd an Australian artist and a volunteer who came to Kenya working with Missionary of Charity Fathers in the spirit of Mother Teresa. She has volunteered in both Ethiopia and
Kenya and saw for herself the tremendous burden of the poor and particularly of homeless children living in the streets. One day, while walking through the rubbish dump accompanied by a priest of the Mother Teresa Fathers in
Nairobi Kenya, a desperate street boy appealed to Lenore for help. Placing his shaking hand in hers, he pointed to the rubbish heap and said “See this is where I sleep” and to a muddy puddle “This is where I drink. Help me. I want to go to school.” Lenore immediately responded and within a few months she personally sponsored the boy in primary school and back with his family. Seeing the intense need of so many street children and the simple act it took to fulfil one boys dream and hope, Lenore personally rescued several other children. Then together with other passionate young Kenyans the inception of Alfajiri was seeded in 2015. As art was the back ground of Lenore’s family, and a sure way of outreach, the organization has a mandate of reaching out to the kids in the streets and those at risk through art creation thus giving them hope, stability and sustainable future through empowerment.

Legal Aspect

Alfajiri Street Kids Art is a registered community based charity organization with the ministry of Gender and sports in Kenya. It has a board of directors who together with the director and
founder Lenore Boyd form part of the governing body.

What we are doing with the kids

Art Workshops

Painting, drawing, creative work

Art therapy

Care and Love

Mentorship and counselling

Education

Attending school, Vocational training and different skills

Reintegration

going home / joining the community

Outreach

Visiting kids where they are, on the streets

Mentoring

listening to kids and giving them hope.

Rehabilitation and Reintegration

Support given through training thus healing from street trauma

Going home / joining the community

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