Have you ever thought about the logistics of cooking three meals a day for 70 people using firewood?  This is the reality at Saidia Children's Home in Gilgil, Kenya where up to 60 abandoned and homeless children live in a family style home run by professional local staff.

 

We'd like to refurbish our outdoor kitchen, install a gas cooker, tanks and two grain silos so that Mama Rhoda and Chef Pamela and their helpers, many of them who are children doing their chores, can cook in a smoke free, healthy environment.

 

In March 2025 a group of volunteer builders will be traveling out to Kenya from Norfolk, UK and will team up with Paul, from Presma Enterprises (our local trusted bulding in Gilgil) and together they will spend two weeks renovating our old, dilapitated outdoor kitchen into something safe, modern and economical.  We are calling the project The Big Build and we'd love your help.

 

 

 We are planning to install a LPG system that will fuel a 2 burner stove and an under oven. Along with a new roof, cooker hood and chimney, the cooking facilities will be safe and water proof. New flooring and wall tiles will make it more modern and hygienic. The store area next to the kitchen will also be tiled and shelving and grain silo’s installed to enable bulk buying of cereals. With with metal doors and new window grills, our new building will be secure. Finally we are adding concrete seats outside so the staff and children have more comfortable places to sit and with the addition of some new ramps, the area will be more accessible to Jill our wheel chair user.

 

 

 

£60 will help shelve the kitchen

£70 will buy a new metal door

£300 will buy one LPG tank

£500 will help us remove the old roof and build a new one

£5,000 donation will give you the naming rights to the kitchen.

 

We have a dedicated Big Build donation page with all the details that you need to donate and help Saidia. Please help us protect the health of our children, they have had a difficult start in life, preventable heath issues caused by smoke inhalation from cooking shouldn’t be one of their challenges.