By Fraire Nyale - GLO & SBM School Social Worker

Mary, Lydia and Charlotte are triplet girls who were born on 4th November, 2014 by cesarean section at only 34 weeks as their mother was seriously ill. Sadly she died giving birth and the girls were placed in an incubator – Mary , Lydia & Charlotte were fighting to survive.

The girls were born into a family of five siblings and their father struggled to hold down a job an he had a problem with alcohol, their mother who was a hard working woman who held the family together was gone. A relative and their father approached Hemed to see if the girls could be admitted to The Good Life Orphanage otherwise they would not survive. A tin of formulae milk costs the equivalent of £12 in Kenya, keeping these girls alive was sadly beyond the family’s financial constraints, They were so tiny they needed 24/7 one to one care.

Despite having stayed in the incubator for almost one month they were still less than 2kgs when they joined our GLO Family in December 2014. They were placed under the care of Mama Mapenzi & Aunt Stella in Flynn house but due to their complex needs an additional caregiver, Aunt Elvina was brought on board.

It was a very long and risky journey seeing them growing but we are very grateful to God and our supporters as the lives of the three were saved. Nearly five years later they have become healthy young girls who are very friendly and talkative.

Since the Kenyan laws require children to be committed for only three years, their committals expired and both the parties involved agreed that it was the ideal time to reintegrate them back to their family as they were out of danger. They started the six month reintegration process by first spending some few hours at their home with Mama Mapenzi and eventually she started to leave them there during the day and pick them in the evening.  Within this period they managed to interact with their siblings and members of their extended family.

 Mama Mapenzi, Hemed & Fraire spent many hours with the family especially their father, he was very keen to have the family reunited. We assisted with carrying out remedial works on the house and the girls had a new bed & mosquito nets put on all the windows.

On 4th January 2019 we successfully reintegrated them to live with their family at Mzambarauni to coincide with Mary, Charlotte & Lydia joining PP1 at SBM School. They are now very happy girls as they are picked up daily in The GLO vehicle to bring them to school, they have lunch at the orphanage where they tell Mama Mapenzi all the latest stories from their village. Then in the early evening they head home again with Uncle Eluid where they father is always waiting to welcome his girls.

Thankfully the triplets sponsors have all agreed to continue to support them so they father always had food on the table for the girls and all their needs are met. Mama Mapenzi & Fraire often drops in unannounced to check on the girls and both have said that they are flourishing back within the family unit. Once again we are very grateful to everyone who helped us in this tricky but successful journey with our first GLO Triplets.

Without the dedication of our amazing GLO staff, Mary, Charlotte & Lydia would not be with us today. Mama Mapenzi, Auntie Stella & Auntie Elvina in particular deserve a special word of thanks for their hard work with the triplets, they were shown love & devotion on a daily basis making them the confident happy young girls they are today.

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