Kilimanjaro Children’s Hope Foundation
exists to educate, and nurture children who have been orphaned
near the Kilimanjaro region of Tanzania.

HISTORY

While a student in Nairobi working towards a business degree, Lucy Lema encountered two small children rummaging through garbage for food. She learned that the children and their parents had been victims of a carjacking. The assailants let the children go without harm. When Lucy found them, the children had been waiting for their parents to return for two days.

Lucy was devastated. She worked to reunite the children with relatives, but had no success. Eventually the kids began to think of Lucy as “Mama,” and a new vocation was born.

Today, almost 70 children call Lucy “Mama,” some entrusted to her care when they are only a few weeks old. Many of these children were orphaned by the HIV pandemic. Others were born into families who simply cannot feed them. No matter the situation, Lucy works to restore their physical, emotional, and spiritual health.