Invisible & Forgotten

When you listen closely to the stories tucked inside the walls of a children’s home, you begin to realize something uncomfortable: you are the beneficiary of undeserved, abundant grace. You hear of a child with two holes in his heart struggling just to breathe. A girl with a fractured leg waiting for surgeries just so she can walk without dragging it behind her. A teenage girl robbed of her womb at a tender age, just to silence her body’s pain. It feels so unjust.

Just across the street, two boys sleep beneath a matatu’s shadow on a cold Nairobi night, their ribs poking through their T-shirts. They sleep there not because they’re brave, but because their parents left; vanished into the fog of irresponsibility. Into the fog of recklessness and excuses. And I’m being polite calling them irresponsible. What I really want is to curse them into the ground, to call them out in words too hot for tar. Michael Jackson once sang, “If you can’t feed your baby, then don’t have a baby.” The simplest truth! And yet here we are, again. Another nameless boy learning how to survive instead of how to live. Another child punished for being born. Why? They never asked to be here. And still we demand they endure what even grownups have failed to handle.

God! Writing this tightens something in my chest. It makes me furious at myself, strangely. Because I haven’t even done anything wrong.

But maybe that’s the problem. I haven’t done anything at all. I’ve watched street children stay street children.

Every time I visit a children’s home, I wonder if I’m actually making a difference or just checking a box. With all the handshakes, matching T-shirts, and carefully staged group photos, I start to suspect I’m not there for the kids. I wonder if it’s just for show. I’m there because it’s “a thing people do.” Something you have to do so you can say you “gave back to the community.” But once the speeches are done and the cameras packed, what remains?

Because I can’t shake the thought that if I were one of those kids, I’d probably see it all as a parade of pity. Outsiders lining up to say, “We’re better than you. Smile for the camera. Stand beside the enormous food donation placed behind us like a product placement.” I’ve even heard someone say—and I believe them—that those kids don’t even like the things we bring. They know it's not really for them. It's for us. They can sense the performance. What they truly want isn’t the show or the branded gifts. They want someone to sit beside them. To talk. To ask questions that don’t come from pity, but from genuine care. Someone who wants to understand what they’ve been through, and what can be done. Not someone trying to feel better about themselves by handing out their used shoes.

And I see how easy it is to become one of those people. To slip into the illusion of doing good without ever doing good. To fall in love with the idea of being helpful, instead of being present. And when your heart is craving authenticity in a world addicted to performance, the mirror turns back on you. Maybe the problem isn’t out there. Maybe it’s in here. I’m quoting MJ a lot today, but he nailed it, again: “I’m starting with the man in the mirror.”

It’s sad what all this has become. A good deed staged for followers and boards and sponsors.

It never sits right with me.

Same with tree planting. You dig a hole, dirty your hands for a photo, then vanish. The seedling dies a lonely death because no one ever comes back to water it. A tree that could’ve been someone’s shade becomes a casualty of someone else’s image. Another stunt dressed as impact.

Recently at a children’s home, during a CSR drive, something shifted. I met a girl. Someone who wasn’t part of our group, who hadn’t come with an agenda or a media team. She came with friends, with laughter in her pockets and color in her hands. It was her birthday. And she’d chosen to spend it painting the faces of children most people have already forgotten.

She brought little bottles of face paint, soft brushes, balloon pumps, and glitter that caught the sun when the kids ran. She turned little girls into princesses and asked the boys what characters they wanted to be—not what sickness they had. Her male friends twisted balloons into animals, swords, and crowns, sliding them onto heads like coronations. Another girl fitted them with sunglasses and passed out juice bottles. The children buzzed with sugar, color, and joy. And the look in their eyes wasn’t the look of people being helped. It was the look of people being seen.

They went wild. Laughter echoed through the compound like actual freedom. For a moment, these kids—tossed out by society for being too broken, too slow, too inconvenient—were kings and queens in balloon crowns, sipping sweet juice in the shade.

And then came this giant, red, inflated mascot that made the kids scream their lungs out. You should have seen them. The cheers. The joy. It transformed the air around them. One of those surreal, beautiful moments where you realize joy can still grow in places the world forgot. For a few hours, abandoned kids felt celebrated. It was the kind of magic that doesn’t ask for attention or validation. The kind that doesn’t wear a logo. The kind that makes you stop and question what you’ve been doing with your time, your presence, your birthdays.

I used to think my birthdays were about me. About surviving another lap around the sun, about the perfect gaming spot, or finding the right girl to spend it with. But after watching that girl and her friends, and how quietly she made such a loud impact, I’ve never felt smaller. And I’ve never felt more inspired.

If you’ve ever felt invisible, know that there are children whose whole lives have been invisible. Who’ve been discarded and disowned. And yet with a balloon crown and a little eye contact, they become royalty.

It reminded me of the school that raised me. A place that didn’t rescue Nairobi street boys in the 60s for headlines, but for humanity. And decades later, they’ve transformed over 20,000 lives. Not for photo ops, but for purpose: To transform boys and girls into exemplary and productive members of society.

Starehe started out as a place where Nairobi street boys would come to get a meal—ugali and soupy green grams stew—and a place to rest at night. They slept in two tin huts, sheltered from the cold of Nairobi. In the daytime, the boys would go out to find something to do, then come back in the evening to eat and rest. This was before it was turned into a school that could accommodate even more boys.

I get nostalgic writing about my school.

It reminds me of what’s possible. Of how real change rarely shouts. It shows up, one stroke of paint at a time. One meal at a time.

And it reminds me there’s still work to do.

Especially on my birthday.

✍🏽Reagan.