Hakeem's Space
Celebrating the impact of 'Hakeem's Space', a mental health awareness outreach program at Beyond the Vision Community-Based School created in honor of Hakeem.
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00:00 I'd like to thank my partners, the family of Hakim, for allowing us to host Hakim's
00:10 First Care, which is a mental health awareness program directed to children in formal settlements
00:19 and in schools, giving them a daily awareness on mental health.
00:24 Apart from creation of awareness, we do a lot of victim advocacy, where we've seen many
00:29 perpetrators being jailed and being punished for the wrongs that they do to children.
00:38 So I thank Madam County for visiting us today.
00:43 We're having our prayer day for the class 8s, and also as we celebrate Hakim's First Care,
00:48 which is a program that has so much social impact in this area and other areas of Nairobi.
00:54 Thank you.
00:55 My name is Kekomua Quill, I'm here with my family, Curtis, my husband, and my daughter
01:00 Shade.
01:01 We started the Hakim space in January 4, 2020, after the loss of our son Hakim.
01:11 I needed to do more than just grief, and in collaboration with Beyond the Vision Initiative,
01:18 we started a feeding program.
01:21 And from the feeding program came the mental health awareness program.
01:26 We found out there was a big need for mental health, and that is definitely my passion.
01:32 So this is the very beginning.
01:34 I started two months ago, I started a non-profit organization in memory of my son Hakim, and
01:40 it's called HNA Mental Health Awareness.
01:44 And my job is to raise funds to support the awareness here in Tasia and Bokasi.
01:53 So help is needed.
01:55 We still need a lot of professionals, psychologists, psychiatrists, to help the children in need.
02:03 And here we are.
02:04 Curtis, do you want to say something?
02:07 I'm Hakim's father, and I came to support my wife and to come and visit to see the sort
02:16 of work that's being done on behalf of my son's name.
02:21 So it's an honor to be here.
02:24 It's a pleasure.
02:25 First time in Kenya as a family.
02:29 And my only regret is my son Hakim could not be here with us.
02:36 But I do know he's here in spirit.
02:38 So I'd like to thank all of you all and thank the school for what they're doing.
02:44 They're doing a lot of great work.
02:46 We appreciate it.
02:47 Thank you.
02:49 What I want to say is this family, having lost their son to suicide, actually put their
02:55 pain to help other families not go through the same path.
03:00 So together with Beyond the Vision, Jacqueline, who you're doing an amazing, amazing job here.
03:08 But such organizations require support.
03:11 So whilst June and her family are going to be raising money from America, and they've
03:15 raised a lot of money over the last three years to actually support this initiative,
03:20 Kenyans will be called upon to also support because mental health is real.
03:24 And we need that space where the children can be able to communicate and talk.
03:29 We want parents to be a bit more vigilant and observe whatever's going through with
03:33 their children, talk to your children at home.
03:37 And hope that Hakim's space can be one day a curriculum that's adopted in our schools.
03:43 I know we have a program, but even here they have a program which they'd like to have incorporated
03:49 or help to improve the one that we have in the schools.
03:52 But all in all, this has been one family's journey of loss and pain to helping the community
04:00 through their outreach in memory of their son.
04:03 So I want to say a big thank you.
04:06 I know it's been a painful journey, but one that is worthy because I'm sure a lot of the
04:11 children that are here, I mean, Jacqueline was talking about when she asked the class
04:15 of 30, she shared the story of Hakim and asked how many of you have thought about suicide?
04:21 Almost half of them said put their hands up.
04:23 So this is a real situation that is happening in a lot of families and to a lot of children.
04:29 One of the things that I'd like to appeal to the government is we've got a lot of community
04:33 schools that are doing very well.
04:35 You know, we had Margaret Lesuda here earlier on, and we've said that can this school also
04:39 become an examination center?
04:41 Can the ministry somehow budget to partner with schools that are actually doing an amazing
04:46 job, right?
04:47 They've got the land, but they don't have the resources to put up the schools.
04:51 You know, I'm going to speak to the CS of education and see is there a way with all
04:57 the classrooms that we want to put up that we also focus on some of the community-based
05:01 schools because these are our children.
05:03 And when it comes to sanitary towels, when we're trying to distribute sanitary towels,
05:06 we want community-based schools, faith-based schools to also be included because that is
05:11 a big problem.
05:12 We focus on public schools, and yet we don't have enough public schools.
05:16 So we need to ensure that the resources for education are spread between public schools
05:20 as well as community-based schools and mission schools so that programs like this which are
05:24 serving the community can be actually shared and adopted by other schools.
05:29 Thank you.
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