Posts tagged: COVID-19 INVISIBLE COMMUNITES

Rita Awino- 20

Beautician

My customers usually come from far to get their hair done here because we are cheap and we have quick moving hair.

Since coronavirus our customers haven’t come to us they are fearing we have it and we will infect them.

We are not hoping for a lockdown because I have a small child, 8 months, and I need to feed him that’s why I come to the roadside and make hair.

We are reduced to two customers a week from 5 to 6 a day. Life doesn’t make sense at all and I don’t know what to do with this new situation.

Anna Nyakaria- 77 years

Day care

We are closed following government directives that all schools should be closed.

We used to pick children from their homes, place them in a shelter that we call day care, feed them porridge in the morning, lunch, and give them a sendoff porridge at 4 PM.

We have 95 children every day to take care of their parents are single mothers who work in Estates as cleaners.

The mothers used to lock their children in houses as they go to find work, children would be starving, cry the whole day, get sick, and many would die out of neglect. The mothers were only being practical as Mama Fua you can’t show up to someone’s house with a child on your back, no one will give you work.

This program has been running for two years with 31 mothers getting direct help from us, at the moment they are back to locking children at their houses. They have to fend for themselves, no one can stay in the house even for a day.

We had employed six workers they were all jobless today.