It's a chilly evening after a heavy downpour in the busy streets of Eldoret as people bustle and hustle to get into a matatu heading home. At the same time, there is a young girl standing on the streets with a baby strapped on her back and behind her, lies a boy taking a nap.
The girl is Alice Atabo, 20, who is stretching her right hand while firmly holding her one-year-old child. She is a mother of two, which is a blessing but at the same time a burden as they have nothing to feed on.
"Kindly assist me with Sh20, my kids are hungry, please assist," Atabo, the young mother persistently begs as some pedestrians deliberately ignore her nagging plea.
She has no place to take her innocent kids and the trio is forced to live on the streets which they have learnt to cherish as their home.
Atabo reveals that her parents separated ten years ago following protracted fights, adding that she opted to move to the streets to escape domestic violence.
The young mother dropped out of school when she was in class six and sought refuge in Eldoret town in 2015. She joined a group of girls suffering the same fate and met her boyfriend shortly afterwards. He, however, used to mistreat her and eventually abandoned her after impregnating her, leaving her to fend for herself and their son, who is now three.
"When I delivered Gibrian, his father never turned up to provide food or financial assistance. I resorted to begging from good samaritans in the streets just to get something to eat," said Atabo while checking on her firstborn child who is sleeping on the damp floor.
Brenda Nafula, 20, a mother of one who is expecting another baby soon. [Source/ Edward Kosut]
Next to her is her friend Sharon Mbone, who is singing a lullaby to her crying baby who seems to be unwell. At this point she cant do much about the situation.
“She seems to be sick though I had visited a nurse during the day and he gave the baby some medicine," said Mbone, adding that she has no money to seek specialised treatment for the baby.
Mbone said street mothers usually don't have money to seek specialised treatment for their children and instead go to health centres seeking medication from nurses with a kind heart.
"We normally take our children to nurses who are willing to assist. Some give us painkillers and refer our kids to big hospitals where we cannot afford the treatment and my girl has to live with only painkillers," said 22-year-old Mbone.
Alice Mbone breastfeeding her 6 months old baby beside her first born boy, Gibril. [Source/Edward Kosut]
She said that the street life is horrendous as they are forced to live in a wild environment which exposes them to sexual harassment and hostile street urchins. To survive, she has turned to substances such as glue, in a bid to escape from the harsh reality.
"I never intended to use glue, I was introduced by friends and found it a bit relieving," said Mbone.
She added that she can go a day without getting food, a situation that forces her to pick food remnants from garbage bins in restaurants so that her baby can have something to eat.
Brenda Nafula, a mother of one who is expecting another baby, is also in the same situation as Alice and Sharon.
Nafula has no knowledge of when she will deliver neither when she got pregnant.
"I have not attended clinic to get prenatal care since I am too strange to many medics there. It's possible to deliver in the street again as I did with my firstborn," said Nafula.
She further revealed that she has no identity card to present to the clinical officers as it is a prerequisite for one to be attended to in a hospital.
Nafula said that she delivered her firstborn child in the streets with the assistance of fellow street girls who have now become acquainted with the process involved in childbirth. She, further reveals that she has never taken her young baby to the hospital for immunization.
The number of homeless mothers living in the streets is increasing rapidly. A section of medics in local health centres including the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH) have intervened by sponsoring administration of contraceptives to street mothers to curb unwanted pregnancies.
Eunice Nanjala who is a street mother with three children said she is happy to have been introduced to contraceptives by a good samaritan as she is now able to prevent unwanted pregnancies.