‘It was one of the sweetest moments in my life’
Janell Simmons hangs out with some of the boys at Naivasha Children’s Shelter in Kenya.
“I met Sammy last year, and I really hit it off with him. We spent a lot of time together. Then a few months after I got home from my first trip, he ran away from the shelter and went back to the streets. I was heartbroken.“
“When I returned in November, I knew that I wanted to go find him. A social worker said they’d seen him in a town a couple hours away, so we kind of knew an area where he was hanging out with other street boys. We wandered in that area until we found him.
“It was really tough. He was in bad shape. I didn’t even recognize him at first. When he saw me, he burst into tears. He was like, ‘You came and you found me. I can’t believe that you remembered me.’ I talked to him for a long time about coming back to the shelter. But he was like, ‘I don’t know. I can’t …’
“Well, long story short, he did return with a group of boys a couple months ago. I had been there, but I left a couple days before the rescue so I didn’t get to see him. A few days after that, I got to video chat with him. It was one of the sweetest moments I can think of in my life. He looked so good. He was smiling. He was happy. He was nothing like the kid I saw on the streets.
“He’s the one I think about a lot when I think about why I want to do this kind of work. It’s kids like that, just not giving up on them when they run away and continue to make bad choices. I was really close to Sammy before, and I feel like we’ve gone through some stuff together. I’m really glad he’s back, and I can’t wait to see him in person when I return. I’m going to give him a big squeeze.”
— Janell Simmons
Janell, who grew up in Highlands, Texas, took a sabbatical from her job in New York City last year to spend about four weeks working at Naivasha Children’s Shelter in Kenya, Africa. The program is designed to rescue and rehabilitate street boys, and reintegrate them with their families and communities. She has been back for short visits, but is now planning to leave her job to move there and continue working with the program for a year or two. Because it is not a paid position, she is raising funds to support the move. Learn more about the shelter and how you can help her cause.
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