Benta is the black woman pictured on the right in this picture.
We lost her this week. She was one of the good ones. I did not know her well, but her humble sincerity, the dedication she obviously put into her work, and the love she had for the orphans she cared for permeated from every word and gesture.
“I like being with the children,” Benta said, “They are my future.” I met Benta at a children’s home in Mombasa, Kenya. The story of that home is amazing in and of itself, and a full profile I wrote for it is currently under consideration with some US magazines. In the meantime, copied below is the query I sent to those magazines that paints the picture:
“They are like my own kids; I can’t just walk away from them.” Says Ashleigh, referring to the 26 children in the orphanage she founded.
In 2011 during a school break at her University where she studies law, Ashleigh, who today is 22, traveled to Mombasa, Kenya to volunteer at an orphanage. The conditions she found there shocked her. The director of the orphanage was a prostituting child out to men in the community. She went to the authorities, but nothing was done. She suspects the orphanage’s director is bribing them.
She returned to Mombasa with support she’d rallied from her hometown and after wading through the necessary licensing, founded her own orphanage to address the great need of children without stable homes in Mombasa. The local government has applauded her efforts and refers children who have nowhere else to go.
Directing both the funding efforts and directing the center all by herself, hiring and training her 8 person staff, Ashleigh splits her time between England and Kenya, returning home for her school exams.
When I visited the center, Benta had just come out of the hospital, one of the volutneers at the center wondered if she didn’t have “The Virus.” In corresponding with Ashleigh, the amazing young woman who opened the center, she just emailed to inform me that Benta passed. Her work that she dedicated the twighlight of her life, will be remembered.
I’ll leave you to click on “Benta” and listen to some of her last words, and post below some photos of the kids she loved with every ounce of her energy.
Benta
