Holy Spirit Parish, Kandisi

Holy Spirit Parish stands in the Kandisi area of Ongata Rongai, in Kajiado North, in the Diocese of Ngong. The parish was created in 1998 by the Comboni Missionaries and was entrusted to the Don Orione Fathers in January 1999.

It is a rural territory on the border of Nairobi and of Maasai land: near enough to the capital to see it, far enough to be forgotten by it. Around twenty thousand people live here, most of them by subsistence agriculture and pastoralism, and poverty is widespread. The mother church is surrounded by outstation chapels, and the community of five religious — four priests and one brother — moves between them.

The Centre is the flagship work of the community. It serves more than sixty children and young people every day — over a hundred when the outreach programmes are counted — aged from 3 to 34, with intellectual disabilities: cerebral palsy, autism, Down syndrome, delayed milestones, microcephalus and hydrocephalus.

Its work stands on three legs.

The Centre is registered with the Ministry of Education. Every student has an individualised education plan (IEP), because no two of these children learn the same way. School transport goes out and brings them in — for many families, this is the difference between education and invisibility.

Physiotherapy, occupational therapy and, since 2017, speech therapy. There is a sensory-stimulation dark room, and animal-assisted and music therapy. The campus itself was landscaped in 2022 to be accessible: stone paths and ramps, and avenues of Nile Tulip trees. On weekends it is open to the community — a place people want to walk in.

On a ten-acre site, four acres of irrigated farm are the classroom. Students over sixteen train there for two years. Then — and this is the point — they are employed, with a contract and their own bank account. More than sixteen graduates have gone on to start income-generating projects of their own.

A feeding programme provides breakfast and lunch. The dispensary San Luigi Orione, opened for the Centre’s tenth anniversary, offers general consultation, minor surgery, maternal and child health, antenatal and postnatal care, and a Child Welfare Clinic.

• 23 August 2011 — the Centre received the award Best Practice on the Protection of the Rights for People with Disabilities from the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights.
• 15 March 2016 — invitation and Certificate of Participation from the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, through its then president, Prof. María Soledad Cisternas, to attend the 15th Session of the Committee in Geneva, Switzerland — an opportunity to learn from the experience of other countries.
• December 2018 — visit of Ms. María Soledad Cisternas Reyes of Chile, United Nations Special Envoy on Disability and Accessibility, during the launch of the good treatment of children and youth with disabilities.
• Visit and letter of recognition from Mr. Nils Katberg, member of the Board of Directors of Special Olympics International.
• 2020 — during the COVID-19 pandemic: over 1,000 food packages distributed and a feeding programme for more than 400 children.

Two projects reaching beyond the Centre’s gate: feeding over 400 vulnerable Maasai children, and bringing children back to school from herding. A child sent out with the goats at six years old will not come back on his own; someone has to go and ask for him.

About fifty children, of whom roughly three quarters are orphans living with their grandmothers. Food, education and basic medical care are assured for each of them.