Mombasa Olympic Youth Organization

GENERAL INFORMATION
Established 2004 By Frederick 'Bokey' Achola

Number of children:
• Olympic Youth: no less than 500
Boxing: 80 (boys)
Soccer: 100 (girls and boys)
Volleyball: have team, but currently suspended due to lack of coach
Rugby: have team, but currently suspended due to lack of coach
Taekwondo: have team, but currently suspended due to lack of coach

Number of staff: None directly employed due to lack of funds.
Administrator and founder: Bokey
Voluntary secretary: Liz Mnegwah

BACKGROUND
Bokey was born in Nairobi , but his parents come from the border of Uganda . After they died, he travelled from Nairobi to Mombasa with his good friend and mentor, reverend Arnold Grol, the Netherlands. Bokey has a background as social worker and with Grol he started doing community work with street children in Mombasa. Grol died in 1997, but Bokey carried on Grol's work with the children, and in 2004 Mombasa Olympic Youth was finally a reality.

The project is well facilitated and has a good network although it is constantly short on funds. A strong point of interest is personal sponsorships for each child and product sponsorships (sanitary towels, sports equipment, etc.). An even stronger point of interest would be long-term sponsorships, relieving MOYO from constantly having to struggle to stay afloat and enabling the organization to concentrate on the children.

At MOYO we see that the children, through sports, get an education, acquire social skills, and experience triumphs as human beings, and lots of joy, which makes them stronger and more able to deal with all of the other challenges they face. We want to support that.

MOMBASA STREET BOYS PROJECT
During 2008 Bokey has established tangible progress for the street boys in Mombasa. These children and youth live on Mombasa Island between trash and cars, and it is estimated that there are approximately 2000 street children in and around the city. It is primarily boys and they can be as young as five years old. Many of them sleep together in their own little society in the middle of the city behind a large hotel. The hierarchy is tough and merciless, everyone is for themselves and the vast majority is addicted to glue.

Every Thursday Bokey goes in to town in search of the children. He invites them to come for a visit to MOYO the following day so that they every Friday have the opportunity to join a project where they can play soccer and have a solid meal.

The boys have to get there themselves (to show that they want to participate) and they cannot be under the influence or arrive with glue. If they are caught sniffing glue they are turned away.

For the boys going to Moyo means that they at least once a week have the experience that someone cares about them. Here they can establish contacts with adults who have experience with children in situations such as theirs. They are fed a solid meal and they spend the most of one day without being influenced by glue. Apart from that they may for the first time feel as if they are good at something and that they can do it successfully both as an individual and in a group setting.

For many of the street boys Friday is their only time to be children and play, they can take a break from the tough life in the city, and that means a lot.

Bokey makes it a priority to get to know the boys and tell their story. With time Bokey hopes that the boys will open up to him and hopefully take him up on his offer on help to schooling, more sport activities and maybe even work.

FACILITY SITUATION
The building is in good condition but they lack funds for rent, coaches salaries, teachers salaries and the street boy project. MOYO collaborates with a school near by, which lets them use their sports grounds and facilities. On April 5 2008, MOYO opened an internet café, which is supposed to function as an income generator for the sport projects. The café is being used by people in the community, but unfortunately it doesn't generate enough funds to cover all the expenses that MOYO have.

• We want to help MOYO raise funds to pay rent and salaries for teachers and coaches.
• We want to find product sponsors that can provide sport equipment and clothing.

IN BOKEY'S OWN WORDS (February 2008)
''We are slowly expanding but things are now moving very slowly, as most of our activities were funded by volunteers who came to work with us and as the situation in the country is not very good, the volunteers have stopped coming.

If we were to get funding, I myself would make sure that you get all the supporting documents and implementation reports and, if possible, photos to show what the funds are being used for.

The areas that need funding or assistance are as follows:
The top priority is rent. Every month, the programme has to pay KES 25,000 in rent to rent the house which houses the project. The money comes from school fees (the nursery school that we run) paid by the children's parents. If the children's parents do not pay on time, we are always in trouble.

The long-term plan would be to buy the building that we have worked to improve so much. It would cost about KES 3 million.

Via sports we reach out to youths and the community of Magongo. Many girls now get individual secondary school-fee sponsorship from individual international volunteers who worked with us. These needy girls were identified via the soccer, basketball or boxing clubs. Support for sports equipment would therefore come in quite handy, like soccer balls, basketballs, boxing gloves, team uniforms, basketballs, etc.

We intend to employ coaches to assist the children who turn out to sign up for the soccer, basketball, boxing and volleyball teams: five coaches in all. At the moment we depend on volunteers. Once a volunteer returns home, the good work he or she had started disintegrates.

This happened to the rugby team as no one could take over. Each coach would earn a total of KES 15,000 every month.

We would also like to employ a social worker full time to look at the individual child's needs and to set out a way forward for the child. He/she would also earn the same amount as the coaches''.

· Manifesto available