TALES OF COURAGE: Why I quit my job to help street children

Brian Ochieng embraces two street children. Brian spent part of his childhood in the streets and recently quit his job to help street children. PHOTO| COURTESY

What you need to know:

  • Brian learnt to do most house chores at the tender age of four years. He did his own laundry and ensured he was always at his best behaviour.
  • His stepfather never missed an opportunity to punish him for the slightest mistake.
  • His mother often joined in the beating or stood by hurling insults at him with each blow he received.
  • Do you have a story to share? Please email [email protected]

Brian Ochieng ,26, was only three years old when his parents divorced. His estranged mother relocated to Nairobi, leaving Brian with his father in Migori.

She had attempted to take Brian with him, but his father would hear none of it. He made it clear that he was not going to give up his only child without a fight. Brian’s mother soon settled in Nairobi’s Huruma estate and soon remarried.

After the divorce, Brian’s father often took him to visit his maternal grandmother who lived close by. During one of these visits, Brian’s grandmother bundled him up one morning and off they left for Nairobi.

When they arrived in the city, they headed straight to Huruma estate where his mother lived. Brian's excitement about being in Nairobi was palpable. Little did he know that this was just the onset of his life’s worst nightmare.

TERRIFIED OF HIS MOTHER

“I don't recall much about reuniting with my mother.  However, I remember being introduced to a certain man who lived in my mother’s house and to a little girl who I was made to understand was my baby sister. When my grandmother left a while later, I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. I look back now and feel like that feeling was a premonition of the horrors that awaited me in the city.”

It started with insults and occasional slaps. He was a curious four-year-old and paid dearly for it when he was caught in any mischief. This would call for a hateful tongue-lashing from his mother and stinging blows from his stepfather. The beatings intensified with time.  

“They bought me a small wooden chair and forbade me from sitting on the comfortable sofas in the living room. One time, my mother found me lying on the sofa and she gave me a proper beating that made me fear to even look at the seats. I was terrified of my mother.”

Brian learnt to do most house chores at the tender age of four years. He did his own laundry and ensured he was always at his best behaviour. His stepfather never missed an opportunity to punish him for the slightest mistake. His mother often joined in the beating or stood by hurling insults at him with each blow he received.

One time they roughed him up so badly that he ended up in a hospital.

RUNNING AWAY

“When I got hospitalised, I hoped it would give them a scare and that they would never lay a hand on me again. I was disillusioned. A few months later, I was beaten up by my parents after spending the entire afternoon playing with children from our neighbourhood. I was punished for having a good time with fellow children. I looked into my mother’s hate-filled eyes as she rained blows on me. It dawned on me that she hated me. She did not want anything to do with me. Even at that tender age of five years old, I understood that I was not wanted in this family. The next morning, I ran away from home and vowed never to return.”

Brian Ochieng as a young boy in the streets ( left) and at the rescue centre ( right). PHOTO| COURTESY

When Brian left home, he ended up in Eastleigh. He was walking aimlessly in the streets when he came across a group of children who looked a bit older than him. A boy in the group approached him.

 “Hey, are you looking for someone to hang out with?” the boy asked.

“Uh…I am new here. I ran away from home,” Brian stammered fearfully.

“Well, come and join us. We will be your new family,” the boy replied as he motioned Brian to join them.

 At first, Brian was reluctant to join the children. Their faces and hands looked greasy with dirt and they stunk. They wore torn clothes. Some of them had no shoes and their feet were caked with all manner of filth. But they had smiles on their faces and kindness in their eyes. They almost seemed happy to see him and to have him join them. It had been a while since anyone looked at him with even the slightest hint of affection. As he drew closer to them, a comforting thought crossed Brian’s mind. “I have a family now.”

DRUGS AND CRIME

Adjusting to his new life was tough. He particularly loathed scavenging for food. The smell of decaying food and having to bite around the rot made him gag.

In the first three months, Brian fell so ill he was afraid he would die.  It was around this time that one of the boys introduced him to glue.

The boy explained that the glue would get him high and numb him from the filth that surrounded them. True to this, when Brian started inhaling glue, the filth lost most of its sting.

“One day I was begging for money in the midday traffic right here in town when someone rolled down the window of their big luxurious car. I stretched my hand in anticipation but the gentleman looked at me and asked whether I would like to make money instead of begging for it. I was puzzled. He placed a package in my hands and pointed to a car on the opposite side of the street. He asked me to take me that package to the car across and come back for my reward. He told me once I go to the car, I should knock and wait.”

Brian Ochieng 26, speaks to a young street boy. PHOTO| COURTESY

“I did as he requested and when I came back, he asked me to give him my hand. He poured white powder on my palm and asked me to lick it like glucose. He said it would make me feel nice. After an hour, I was so high I slept 24 hours straight. The next day, we met with the same man along the same street and I did two drops for him. That is how I got hooked to peddling and using cocaine. I never got caught. Which police officer would frisk a common street urchin and risk soiling their hands with our filth?”

Brian and his friends roamed through different streets in Nairobi. One time they smuggled their way to Mombasa and lived there for six months. Nothing significant happened while in Mombasa.

RAPE

Brain spent seven years on the streets. Although the drugs blurred the severity of the cruel life on the street, some experiences cut painfully deep into his soul. Like the day he watched as two of his friends got run over by a truck killing them instantly.

Or when an older boy raped him when he was 11 years old. Dark memories that shake him to date. He painfully recalls one time when well-wishers came, picked some boys of the street and left without giving him as much as a second glance. It was as if no one wanted him. There was also the time he spotted his mother in the streets and attempted to touch her but she shrugged him off and went her way. That stung.

He found comfort in drugs though. He also took to cooking in the streets. He would take some of the vegetables they collected and make some soup. His street family enjoyed these random delicacies.

HOPE

“I was lying on a cold corridor out there in the streets one rainy morning. A woman bent over and asked me if I would like to get some help. I grunted in reply and she took that for a yes. She told me that she could help me on one condition. I had to enroll on her program called Made in the Street. Hungry and cold, I did not have much of a choice and so I obliged.”

“When I joined the program, I received basic education and graduated at 18. I wanted to study catering but they did not offer catering course back then. I decided to give back to the centre by applying for a cooking hob. Fortunately, the centre had Wi-Fi and I was able to learn a lot through YouTube. I worked there for five years and made many friends including the program’s well-wishers from the US. They loved my cooking.”

He got clean while at the centre.

VENTURING OUT

In 2014, Brian left the centre with some savings and exceptional cooking skills. He relocated to Uthiru and started looking for work. He had no luck scoring a job despite sending out 165 job applications. He started cooking chapatis and mandazis which he sold by the roadside to earn a living.

One day, he received a call from one of his US friends, Hang Lee. Brian shared his job-seeking woes which saddened Hang Lee deeply. A few days later, Brian received a call from the then manager of Ocean Basket. He had been referred to Brian by Hang and wanted him to attend an interview.

Although Brian did not have decent clothes to attend an interview, he wore confidence quite well. After a successful interview, Brian started his new job as a cook at Ocean Basket in Westlands, Nairobi.

Brian helps clean up the feet of a street boy. PHOTO| COURTESY

“I never stopped subscribing to cooking videos on YouTube. I learnt how to make exotic meals through the tutorials. After six months, I got promoted to a sushi Chef. That is when I relocated from Uthiru to Lavington. One year into the job, I started having this queasy feeling in my gut; a longing to do something for children in the streets. I knew they were not having it easy one bit. I started by buying a lot of fries in town and distributing them to the street children every evening. Then I started spending all my off days distributing food to them. After a while, I felt I would do much more if I tagged along friends to help with the program. Therefore I created a page on Facebook to mobilize my friends. Most of them were not enthusiastic about the cause at all. Not that I blame them, most of them had no idea what it means to live off the streets.”

Brian is a motivational speaker and an aspiring author. He travels across the country speaking to students and youths on matters life and keeping off drugs and this is how he manages to eke out a living.

GIVING BACK

Brian handed in his resignation letter after two years of a successful career. His decision to resign came from the realisation that he was happier taking care of street children than whipping up exotic meals. With the saving accrued, he set up a movement called Love for a Street Child. Its core mandate was to feed, talk to and restore the dignity of the street children.

Brian Ochieng, 26, was only three years old when his parents divorced. PHOTO| COURTESY

In 2016, he ran a successful campaign dubbed Save a Child’s Feet and got shoes for 200 children. He is currently in the process of registering an organization called Ndoto za Kupaa.

It will be the link between a well-wisher who desires to sponsor a child’s education and a street child who desires to go to school.

“I cringe whenever a politician talks of flushing the children off the streets. They are not human waste. They are innocent who did not ask to live off the streets. The least we can do is giving them a chance to rise above the filth. Beyond feeding them, I bond with them as though they were my own children. They call me Odijo, meaning teacher. I try to love them like I imagine my father would have loved me. I met father last year after more than 20 years apart. It was a tearful reunion. However, we did not talk much. I do not know him. I have fantasies of what a father should be. I live these fantasies through the street children I work with. It is because of them that I celebrated Father’s Day. Now, my life has meaning.”

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