But the first thing that stays with you is not what these children cannot do. It is
the way they are loved. The home has a motto: We do our best and God does the
rest. The children and staff share another expression, one that feels even more
revealing: Tunapenda kupendwa: we love to be loved. It is a simple declaration.
Yet, in a place built around children whose very presence has sometimes been
rejected by the families and communities into which they were born, it carries a
weight that is difficult to ignore. What does it mean for a child to have to find
somewhere else to belong? And what does it say about the world that made that
necessary?
The stories behind the children at En-Gedi are not all the same. But they are
connected by a troubling reality: disability can alter the way a child is received by
the very people expected to protect them. For some families, a child born with a
disability is difficult to reconcile with what they understand about life, family and
the world around them. Traditional beliefs, cultural expectations and religious
interpretations can shape how disability is understood. Where the condition
cannot be explained, some families search for explanations beyond medicine. In
some cases, the child becomes a source of shame or fear. The consequences can
be devastating.
Margaret Njuguna, the founder of En-Gedi, told us that her work involves rescuing
children from confinement within their own homes. These are not necessarily
children found on the streets or abandoned at hospital gates. Some have been
hidden away from the world, their existence known only to a small circle of
relatives. In her account, some children are so neglected by the time they are
rescued that they need urgent medical attention.
The rejection does not always stop with the child. Sometimes, a mother who gives
birth to a child with a disability is herself blamed or pushed away by her family or
partner. A child’s disability can become a test of whether a family and community
are willing to make room for a reality they did not anticipate.
It raises a difficult question: what happens when the world a community believes
in collides with the child in front of it? The child has not chosen to be born with a
disability. They have not chosen the circumstances of their birth, the beliefs of
their community or the expectations placed upon them. Yet they can end up
paying the price for all three.
Margaret has spent years trying to reach children caught in that collision. Working
with local authorities, she helps bring children from their homes into a place
where their needs can be met. Families are expected to maintain contact, but,
according to Margaret, many never return. Some of the children at En-Gedi may
never know why their families stopped coming. Others may grow up without ever
having the opportunity to understand the circumstances that led them there.
But there is another story unfolding at En-Gedi, one that becomes apparent when
you spend time with Margaret and the children. It is a story of care, but also of
intention. Margaret is not simply keeping the children alive; she is trying to build
a home in which they can live with dignity, receive the attention they need and
have a future.
You see it in the way the home has been designed, in the routines that shape the
children’s days and in the attention given to their individual needs. You see it in
the way Margaret interacts with them, and in the way they respond to her. There
is a familiarity, a tenderness and, in some of their faces, an unmistakable
adoration. Watching them together, I found myself thinking about how much of a
child’s world is shaped by the person who shows up for them consistently.
Margaret’s work is not sustained by a single benefactor or a guaranteed source of
funding. The home relies on donations, and the needs of 25 children are
continuous. Food must be bought, care must be provided and the work must go
on, regardless of whether the money comes in. Yet Margaret is also thinking about
how En-Gedi can become financially sustainable, with an investment plan
intended to help the home stand on its own feet. Her motto, “We do our best and
God does the rest,” is an expression of faith, but it also captures the uncertainty of
building something that must endure.
During the visit, I kept returning to the words shared by the children and staff:
Tunapenda kupendwa. It is difficult to hear that phrase without thinking about
what these children may have been denied. Love is often spoken of as though it
is an instinct, something that comes naturally when a child is born into a family.
But the stories at En-Gedi challenge that assumption. Love can be withheld. Care
can be abandoned. And the people who need protection most can become the
very people a community struggles to accept.
What moved me was the reminder that, whatever their disabilities and however
much assistance they require, these children are not defined by their need for
care. They have personalities, preferences and ways of expressing affection.
They respond to familiar voices and familiar faces. They deserve to be treated not
as burdens or symbols of misfortune, but as children whose lives have value in
their own right.
I left En-Gedi thinking about the distance between being alive and being wanted.
The two should never be mutually exclusive, yet the stories of these children
suggest that, for some families, they have become so.
Margaret has answered that rejection with a commitment to care. She cannot
undo what happened before the children arrived, nor can she change every belief
that made their acceptance difficult. But she has created a place where those
beliefs do not have to determine how the children are treated. And perhaps that
is what stayed with me most. Not simply that these children have a home, but that
they have people who recognise their worth even when others have struggled to
see it.
I keep coming back to the question I carried into En-Gedi: what happens when a
child is born into a world that has no room for them? I left understanding that
sometimes another world must be built for that child, one where they are not
required to justify their existence, where their needs do not diminish their worth,
and where love is not conditional on who they were expected to be. But I also left
with a harder question for the world beyond En-Gedi: why should a child have to
be rescued from the people and beliefs that were supposed to make them feel at
home?
Article written by Maitethia Doreen