Prince: “I feel good now. My life is okay now.”

Prince is the third born in his family. His grandparents live in the nearby area and he gets a chance to visit them often. Sadly, Prince's father died when he was still young. This unfortunate incident placed a heavy burden on his mother, who had to step up as the sole breadwinner for their household. She started selling food, mainly pineapples to nearby local schools to earn some income. However, with the limited number of clients, her earnings from this business venture was barely enough to cater for the family's basic needs and cover school fees for Prince and his siblings. With the looming challenges, life became extremely hard for Prince.

Prince and his family live in a modest one bedroom house. The kitchen and latrine, however, are situated outside the main house. They have water and electricity. They all sleep in the single room which is partitioned at night. They do not have a playground and only have a chance to play football in the nearby stadium.

Prince, a determined young man, is currently in Form 1. He successfully completed his Class 8 education with an impressive score of 336 marks. However, his education journey was far from smooth, as he has often been sent home from school due to lack of school fees.

On a normal day, Prince woke up early, took a bath and prepared to go to school. He attended different classes and left in the afternoon. Upon arriving home, he took up house chores and also washed his school uniform. After fulfilling his daily responsibilities, he went to the field to play football with his friends, a game he was truly passionate about.

When school closed down during the covid-19 pandemic, life became unbearable for Prince and the entire family. Prince's mother found it increasingly difficult to generate enough income to sustain the family's basic needs. This led to Prince starting work in the quarry mines in Thika where he would earn approximately 0.89 Euros per day depending on the quantity of stones extracted. He would spend the money to buy food for the family. His brother and sister would accompany him as well. 

Every day, for one year, he would wake up by 8 am to go to the quarry. He would beat the stones in the quarry.  Sadly, due to the extremely poor conditions in the quarry, his health deteriorated. He would often get sick and cough profusely. In addition to that, he met bad people who would bully him and even forcefully  take the little money he earned. Seeing young children work alongside him really affected him. Sadly, he had no other alternative at the time and persevered through his hardships. “I felt hopeless and I did not want to work in the quarry. I just wanted to go to school and play football,” he said.

After the Covid-19 pandemic, Prince was finally able to resume school. He was playing football for the V-Kings team at the time. It was during his time back at school that he met the “Time to Play” project team. The “Time to Play" project, dedicated to providing opportunities for children to engage in sports and play, was distributing balls to the school's sports teams at that time. Prince was really excited and overjoyed that his team would have new balls to play with and was determined to seize every chance of playing the sport he loves most. 

After being identified by the ‘Time To Play’ project team, he feels lucky to have and enjoy his childhood life and happy moments with his friends. 

Thanks to the transformative "Time to Play" project, Prince has found a sense of joy and purpose in engaging in play activities, particularly through his beloved sport of football. By providing footballs to his school, the project has paved the way for Prince and his teammates to hone their skills, nurture their talent, and engage in friendly competitions. Prince hopes that the V-Kings team will participate in the National League in future.