Transition House - 2013 GLO Project

With 62 children to look after and plan for their future we have to remain forward thinking. The children in our care do not have parents or, in the majority of cases, even extended families that can guide and support them on their journey into adulthood. We need to help prepare them for the world they will face as an adult.This has caused us many headaches and sleepless nights.

Our solution is to build a “transition house” where the older children will learn to cook, clean and care for themselves under the watchful eye of a Youth Leader. It will be segregated, with 10 boys and 10 girls having their own cooking and washing facilities. These young adults will receive guidance and support during their time in the transition house, which we hope will result in well-balanced, confident 18 year olds who are fully prepared for life outside the security of The Good Life Orphanage. In January 2013 we turned over the first piece of soil on our new development, we were building again which made Papa Kevin very happy!

Fortunately for us, Kevin was onsite for the majority of the build and supervised the work on a daily basis, we were very lucky to have the same builder as we used to build St Bernadette Mary School and true to form the materials were delivered on time and the actual build was on target every month.

As with all aspect of development on the project, we left nothing to chance. From the initial idea on the back of a piece of paper by Mike Flynn Senior when he visited the project we knocked around ideas keeping in mind that this house will be the final step in moulding our children into well balanced young adults who can care for themselves once they leave the security of the orphanage walls when they reach 18 years old. Auntie Christine is going to be the mentor as she has a great understanding of teenagers and also knows first hand that life can be very cruel if you are not prepared. She is also a very compassionate lady and is easy approached so the teenagers feel they can talk freely to her with any problems they are having.

When Papa Kevin returned to the UK in May, he was very happy with the progress and was looking forward to seeing the progress on his return in September. He was not disappointed, every single instruction was carried out to the letter and the only fault he found a small space around the doors, now anyone that knows Kevin well also knows how particular he is about the standard of workmanship so this was indeed a compliment to our builder.

The Prayer Room was very impressive and the overall work done over a very long rainy season was indeed a sight to behold. The communal areas were light & airy and the bedrooms were very cool thanks to the special insulation used on the roof to keep the heat out. We have used this system before on both the orphanage houses and the school, it is a Godsend on the hot humid days & nights in Mombasa.

Thanks to the support we have received during 2013 culminating in a very successful function in Manchester on 7th December we can now finish the building to the specification we always try to emulate, it is Kevin’s passion and with the funds raised the dream again can come true for us all.

In March 2014 we are planning to have our official opening day, four of our older boys and two of our older girls will be making the transition across to their new home, without your help & support this again would have been a pipedream, instead it is the beginning of the next stage of development for our children. In time it will also free up twenty additional spaces for the orphanaged, abandoned and vunerable children in the area.

In the words of Mother Teresa “I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples” , all together we are making a difference by giving these children a chance to escape the shackles of poverty and our Transition House is the next step for The GLO Children on this long road.