Daniel Nduati’s phone was ringing when he and his brother, Peter, met me in Dagoretti on a recent afternoon. I’d come to visit the rescue shelter the two young men had opened for children displaced by the new year’s violence, but an unrelated matter came up first.
“There’s a lady who says she wants to see us,” Daniel said, putting his phone away. “I don’t know who she is, but she’s just down the street.”
We drove to a nearby matatu stage, where a small, stout woman in a pink business suit climbed into the front seat, introducing herself with a sad smile.
“I have a friend,” Elizabeth said quietly, “who told me you could help my son.”
We drove off, bouncing along the pitted streets of Dagoretti Market with Peter behind the wheel and Daniel in the back with me. Everyone said hello. Peter said all his friends call him OP; Elizabeth nodded, then explained that her boy was addicted to drugs.
“Which ones, exactly?” OP asked.
“Gasoline at first,” said Elizabeth, “but now I think glue also. He used them a long time ago, but stopped for a while when we took him to the hospital last year. Now he’s started again.”
The two brothers took turns asking question, gently but firmly, the way you pull out a tooth.
“How old is your son?”
“Twenty.”
“When did he first start sniffing?”
“When he was eight.”
“Where does he get the money?”
“He charges batteries.”
“Your boy has absorbed these drugs deeply,” Daniel concluded after a few minutes. “They are in his blood, in his brain. He’s helpless now, and angry because of that. He is angry at you and everyone who loves him. But we can make him better. Tomorrow, we’ll come to your house and talk with him. And later we’ll bring him to stay with us for a while. He needs to be around other boys who have gone through this kind of thing.”
There are no shortage of such boys in Nairobi – Daniel is one himself. Though no hint of it remains in his smooth, quietly flamboyant manner, when Daniel was thirteen he ran away and spent four years on the streets of the capital, addicted “to every drug I could get my hands on.” He was seventeen before a religious awakening finally brought him into church and convinced him to move back home.
His return to his family led to a theological scholarship in Norway, from which he graduated in 2000 and came back to Kenya. Together with his brother’s help and the financial backing of private donors he’d met abroad, Daniel founded a shelter for street children in the shade of the Ngong hills: the Emmanuel Boyz Rescue Center.
Over the past seven years, Daniel and OP have ushered over three hundred street children through Emmanuel’s doors. Not a bad resume for two guys in their mid-twenties. But as 2007 gave way to a dark new year, the brothers realized that one Emmanuel wasn’t nearly enough.
“A few days after Kibaki was announced president,” OP recalled, “I called Daniel and told him: we have to act swiftly.” Calls had been pouring in from IDP camps desperate to find living spaces for their burgeoning populations. But Emmanuel was already full. OP squeezed a few homeless Luo boys in from Dagoretti, knowing they would be killed if they stayed on the Kikuyu-dominated streets… but the pressure to bring in more grew literally by the hour.
On January 4th, less than a week into the chaos, Daniel and OP rented a two-storey, five-bedroom house on Dagoretti’s Waithaka-Ruthimitu Road, and started driving in families by the truckload. They called their new home Emmanuel Kidogo.
“The first group we brought were sixteen street kids from Korogocho,” OP recalled. “They were so traumatized they forgot all about their drug habits.”
But as more victims kept flooding in to Kidogo, the silver lining grew increasingly thin. Leaflets signed ‘Mungiki’ began appearing on doorsteps throughout Dagoretti, including at Kidogo: All Luos and Kalenjin are our enemies, they read. You have 48 hours to leave before we burn your houses.
“We ferried in all the non-Kikuyus in the middle of the night,” Daniel said. “Once they were there, we warned them not to step outside. Man, it was tense.”
Eighty people were living at Kidogo at the height of the chaos. Many had left by the time I visited, driven by OP and Daniel to family homes outside Nairobi. But 30 boys remain for Kidogo is now a permanent home.
There is Jacky Karanja, the ten-year-old bearer of a vicious scar now running the length of his right leg. A street child from Dagoretti, he’d jumped on to a speeding lorry to escape a scene of tear gas, machetes and stray bullets; he escaped all these only to lose his grip and fall at such velocity that the pavement tore the flesh off his bone.
And there are the three Karioki brothers: Hosea, James and Joseph. Aged seven, nine, and eleven, they were tending cattle in Burnt Forest when the fields caught fire on December 30th. They raced back to the house in time for their mother to hide them in a cow shed. She then ran into the granary to distract raiders, who locked her inside and burned her alive while her children watched through a crack in the wall.
More than half of Kidogo’s children were orphaned in the post-election violence. “They’ve lost all trust,” said OP. “We have counselors who talk to them every day, and slowly they are opening up. But it’s extremely hard to get them to talk about what they’ve been through.”
With their past in ruins, it can at least be said the boys have a good shot at a positive future. The most immediate threat was resolved when Daniel and OP organized a meeting with the local Mungiki, convincing them to leave Kidogo alone.
“In fact,” said Daniel, “they’re now protecting us.”
Meanwhile, 28 of the boys are enrolled in school or vocational training, depending on their age. The remaining two are joined by a dozen kids from the neighborhood each day – Kidogo doubles as a kindergarten, tended by the pastor who now lives here after his own home was destroyed in the skirmishes.
“You know,” Daniel said, “we can’t wait for the government to step in and solve everything – we have to act now. We have to get these kids in school, and we have to teach them to love each other.”
“Only when we educate the children that we are all Kenyans,” OP added, “can we expect change. That’s why we’re focusing on the kids. They’re our foundation. If we give them the right information, in ten or fifteen years we’ll be living in a very different Kenya.”
Arno Kopecky is a Canadian journalist and travel writer currently based in Nairobi. After spending most of his twenties on a surfboard, Arno moved to New York city for an internship with Harper’s Magazine. Since then he has written extensively for Canadian and international publications like The Walrus Magazine, The Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, as well as Kenya’s own Daily Nation newspaper. He is an editor at Kwani?.
these two brothers are doing a good job i have really been touched they are real mashujaas
Great work guys! Anyone wishing to support Daniel and OP’s work should check out http://www.emmanuelcenter.com
I admire what you are doing so much! Managing to extend the work of Emmanuel during the crisis caused by the election is so amazing. All over the world, when people step up and try to do something to help a local problem, instead of waiting for someone else or government to fix everything, they accomplish miracles – and that is what you guys are doing!
This is awesome guys. Mungu awabariki sana!!! I wish that I could come back and visit.
I truly believe that all that time God preserved you ma brothers for a time like dis.
May God Shawer you with His Heavenly Blessings.Knw what?Proverbs 19:17,”He who is kind to the needy/poor LENDS God and He will REPAY him for all his GOOD deeds.”
Hey Dan wa watoto…
Congrats so much for the great work you are doing to these children.God bless you. Please let us know if there is any help you need frm us.
carol -Sonko
I continue to be amazed at the resilience that people struggling with disenfranchised conditions have. Our rafiki Daniel, OP and their associates show this resiliency and are making a difference to the young lives they touch…for they are our hope for the future…Love and Peace in Kenya and throughout the world!
I love the work that my brothers r doing.May it be know to them that O.P AND Dan,” he who feeds the poor n needy lends God and He will REPAY him with GOOD” PROV.19:17.
I recommend them for the highest award in the word for caring for humanity by self sacrifice and dedication to the needy children.
God bless you abundantly……
Kudos to you guys,Daniel and Peter(O.P)
I am short of words for observing what you are doing to improve lives.
May the Lord always fill your granaries so that those needy and emotionally desperate kids will lack nothing.
May Heaven smile on you for expressing the true gospel that comprise of words and DEEDS of charity.
Be blessed!!!!!!!
You mean you have been taking care of such needy people?And if that is not enough,you went ahead and started Emmanuel Kidogo,your are really people of great heart.
God will shower you with His provisions each day since you are acting on His behalf.I wish the world can reward you,if they will not,God will absolutely do.
Matthew 5:17,”Let your light shine before men that they may see your good works and Glorify your Father in Heaven”.
keep it up guys for what you are doing.Thanks for making these children smile again.
I believe we have alot more to learn from you guys.
with you in prayers.
Cheer up guys!!!!!!!!!
Asantie kwa hiyo job munaidu.imagine everything must b rewarded,no matter how long it takes.
Since there is a man of God at Kidogo, i am assured that those children will grow like Jesus grew,in favour wit men n Wit God.
pongezi mandugu!!!!!!You deserve a quick reward from the Holy of Holies,cling on 2 Him ,He will alwaz provide.
Above all,am praying for you to succeed in all things.
Cheers M.O.Gs.
its wonderful to hear that such young men can give hope may the lord take care of you op and your brother you deserve the highest prize on earth for doing what even politicians deed you are more than angels may the lord bless you for what you are doing long live emmanuel long live dan and op
am short of words…hey this is more than awesome…may God expand your good works.
Dan & O.P you are amazing in Gods eyes. BE BLESSED. sana
later
joki.
Wonderful thing those boys are doing and a great piece too!
op i know you have given your life for the kids i see why you quit journalism may the lord bless you and open the flood gates over you and your work these is great you are true heroes
hey op keep it up mkiwa na dan you deserve what politicians dont be blessed am so tusched that our kenyans have a hert for others hope the government should read such an article and support such young men you are real heroes
hey op there continue and the lord will lift you up these are great heroes in our land where is our media these are untold stories may the lord help you and emmanuel kidogo long live we wish you the best thnks kwani for telling us such storis its encouraging
op congrats men do the work withou fear continue having faith and helping children
these is great guys keep it up stand up for the rights of the hopeless never give up it remingds me of the movie blood brothers thts great keep up boys
Opi you are a champion! You are doing incredible things, helping to change the world for the better one precious life at a time! We salute you and support you all the way! :-)
what I can say bout this two brothers is that take heart and God will Bless you. Remember that no good work goes to waste but all of it God pours His Blessings on it cheers
How are you doing so far? Where is the greatest opportunity for marketers in countries other than the good ol’ USA? Is it India, Brazil, China, Eastern Europe or somewhere else?
I am short of speech for what Dan and OP have done for this children…I know Dan personally , we were friends for so many yrs until i moved to Toronto and lost touch..Dan has a bog beautiful heart and i know he has opened his hand and heart to so many homeless children…I pray that God grant happiness for ever and bless him abundantly . Dan, nakuombea na naomba siku moja al be one of ur big sponsors..Mad love bro!!
what is happening with these projet they started is it still going on
Hi Daniel,
I heard your great contribution on Truth FM and was greatly encouraged by your contribution to the society. kudos as you continue giving hope to the hopeless. its the mark of a leader.
blessings