My Nonprofit Reviews

I was a health volunteer at amani for 6 months and can honestly say that this organization changes the lives of hundreds of children. The children come to Amani from the street and are tired, hungry, sometimes drugged, weary of adults, and filthy...clothes that had once been white now gray and black with dirt, finger nails crusted with mud, skin with scrapes and bruises and covered in a layer of filth, and minds filled with horrific memories of things that I could never even imagine. After a few days at Amani these same children actually begin to look like normal kids again. They have clean clothes, skin, nails, a full belly and most importantly, smiles on their faces and caring, loving people surrounding them.
While having clean clothing, a bed, and love are essential, it will benefit the kids only in the moment. In addition to the necessary comforts the children also need tools that they can use to provide themselves with a future that does not involve life on the street. This is done through education. Amani puts every child living there through school, whether it be at Amani, so that the children can catch up with their age group after no schooling, or sending them to outside school during the day. After primary school, the children can then go on to secondary school, and this is where donors can truly make a huge impact on an individual life. While public schools are much cheaper, there are days where the children show up to class and no teacher ever comes, the education is just not as sufficient. Private schools are much more expensive but truly give the child a thorough and intriguing educational experience. Additionally, Amani generally wants a child to live either in boarding school or with a family member by the time they are in secondary school, because this allows the child to have a more "normal" part of childhood, and allows for new children to come in off the streets. There are situations where children who were top students get reunited with family and no longer attend school or start to do poorly in school. Ideally, these children would be sent to a boarding school, but, again, the cost is major limiting factor.
This is an area where donations and individual sponsors have the potential to drastically change the life of one child. If a child is given a good education they then have the tool they need to keep themselves off the streets for the rest of their life.
When I ask some of the kids what they want to do when they grow up or what they want to study some common answers are , "circus" "futbol" "teacher" "doctor" but the responses that really touch me the most are "help kids who grew up like I did" "help kids like the ones at amani" "social work to help kids like me".

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