The Ark Children's Home

Founded in 2008

The Ark Children’s home was started in 2008 by Caroline W Gichuhi to take care of the orphaned and vulnerable children. A calling from God led her to resign in April 2007 from her teaching career of 21 years.

At the time, Kenya anticipated to go for elections which in previous years had marked with tribal clashes. Caroline was involved in serious intercessions, praying for peaceful elections to prevail in the Country. She was in a group of local pastors and intercessors. They organized prayers and visits to the local areas.

In one of the visits to a local slum, that Caroline felt a huge burden laid in her heart to act on the plight of the poor, suffering and abandoned children. This led to the formation of the Ark Children Home in January 2008. The home started by giving shelter to five children and has increased to impact the lives of hundreds of children and community members.

Together with board members, Caroline and her team run the affairs of the orphanage daily.

Read all about The Ark on their website

A safe home

Far too often, children end up on the street. Sometimes due to the death of parents, sometimes because parents cannot care for their children. In some cases the situation is so desperate that children are abused and the police intervene.

In all these situations, first and foremost, a place is needed where the children are lovingly cared for. Ideally, this is a family member of the children, or someone from the community where the child comes from. Unfortunately, the practice is unruly.

The Ark takes care of these children by taking care of them, offering them an environment that comes as close as possible to a real family and allowing them to go to school.

Vision and Objective

The Ark's website states the vision: Transformation of lives from poverty, neglect and needy backgrounds to dignified, grounded, well able, Self-sustained members of society.

The purpose is stated in the Constitution paper of the Ark:

Providing a home to children between 1 month and 18 years old who:

- Either have been removed from home in the context of the Children's Act;
- Or otherwise relocated or voluntarily placed in The Ark;

Serving and supporting parents in difficult social and economic circumstances, who want the necessary care for their children;
To care for children who are completely neglected by their parents;
Providing such children with the necessary physical, social and spiritual care and support to promote development during their early years;
Providing a family support system and educating the community about child care.

Family reunion

The Ark Children's Home, through its social workers, intensively collects and investigates possible leads to locate family members for each child placed in our care by the government.

If family members can be traced, The Ark strives to empower families to facilitate a child's integration into a stable and safe family environment through counseling and providing resources. This takes time, constant communication and supervision.

Every case is unique, but The Ark does everything it can to reunite children with their family. We maintain regular contact through our social workers to guarantee stability and guide the family.

The Mwanzo foundation

The Mwanzo foundation is committed to The Ark Children's home in Ngoliba, Kenya. We do this by supporting with knowledge and resources, for example in the operational costs and special projects of The Ark so that the staff of The Ark can help the families and parents of the children to get their lives in order and provide for their own livelihood.

In this way, The Ark helps children who lived on the street to return to their family and community and in this way we help The Ark with this.