Why serving the less fortunate fills Christine Muli

Hope For Orphans Rescue Centre Director Christine Wambui Muli talks about the home she has built on Kangundo Road, Nairobi, to care for orphaned children. PHOTO | FRANCIS NDERITU | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Among the 45 children who currently call Horec home, one is just a month old, four are in pre-primary, 31 in primary school, eight in high school, and one in college. 

  • Many other children have passed through the home with 14 now independent adults; three have families of their own. Her foster son is in college.

Growing up, Christine Wambui Muli wanted to become a nun. She was the second born in a family of seven.

Her parents, committed Christians, inspired her and her siblings to be charitable, to give to the less fortunate around them, even though they were not ‘well-off’.

OVERWHELMING

“I grew up knowing that love has to be put into action, and that action is service. I knew from a young age that my purpose was serving others, and I felt that I could fulfil this purpose if I became a nun,” says Ms Muli, 54.

By the time she turned 18, she had devoted herself to helping the poor and the aged in her home area in Githunguri.

As fate would have it, her father, a doctor, lost his job in 1985, forcing her to cut short her dream of becoming a nun. This made her study a short course that would enable her to get a job to help her mother, a housewife but now the breadwinner, to take care of their large family.

She opted to study a secretarial course, after which she got a job in a private firm.

Eager to earn as much as she could, Ms Muli also got a job in a beauty salon, where she learnt on the job. “I was making enough to support myself and my family but I was not happy since my desire was to serve the less fortunate in my community. I felt stuck,” she says.

In 2000, her close friend was diagnosed with HIV. Ms Muli was devastated. For about two years, she cared for her friend and offered her all the support she could.

The demand of caregiving was overwhelming and, being a terminal illness, Ms Muli felt she had no control over the situation.

“I was so disappointed to see my friend’s health worsening. What made the situation worse is the fact that we could not easily access antiretroviral drugs (ARVS); a factor that made her condition worse each day,” she says.

LONG TRIPS

In 2003, her friend, a single parent, passed on, leaving behind a 10-year-old son. Due to the close relationship she had with her friend, she decided to bring up the boy.

“Coping with the loss of my friend was one of my life’s biggest challenges. In the midst of my grieving and caring for her son, it occurred to me that I could provide the much-needed care to children such as my friend’s son, children that had been orphaned by HIV and Aids?”

In 2005, she established Hope For Orphans Rescue Centre (Horec) Children’s Home, located on Kangundo Road.

Over the years, the home has been a refuge, a loving place for children either living with or orphaned by the virus. At the moment, she says the home cares for 45 children.

“I have dedicated my life to mentoring and providing parental support to these children through the help of well-wishers whose support has been overwhelming. We provide the children with everything they would get in a normal home; food, education, protection, shelter and psychosocial support,” she says.

Noble initiatives such as hers are not without challenges. Her biggest is having to make long trips to the hospital to get ARVS for some of the children. The nearest hospital which dispenses ARVs is in Kariobangi, some kilometres away.

GOT MARRIED

“Some children are afflicted by opportunistic diseases, which require immediate response,” she says, adding that the government should create a platform where the drugs can be distributed at ease in different institutions to save patients the huge costs of transport.

Among the 45 children who currently call Horec home, one is just a month old, four are in pre-primary, 31 in primary school, eight in high school, and one in college. 

Many other children have passed through the home with 14 now independent adults; three have families of their own. Her foster son is in college.

“I am grateful for this opportunity to give back to the community. This is a dream come true. I did not become a nun; I even got married and got two children of my own, but I feel fulfilled. I am doing what I have always desired to do — serve the less fortunate,” she says.