It is more blessed to give than to receive, the Scripture says.
Rozina Ali, the founder and President of Better 2 Gether Foundation, established in 2017, is doing this for the less fortunate.
On Saturday, the foundation, through its Food To Streets programme, fed at least 400 people living on the streets of Mombasa.
They were fed rice and beans, a packet of milk, soda, and the lucky ones got plates, which they can use in the future.
Some of the street mothers said they had gone two days without something to eat. “Sometimes we get something to eat when we beg on the streets. Sometimes we get nothing,” Zeinab Kadzo, a mother of three said.
“When people like ‘Mama Mhindi’ come, it is like Christmas to us. My children will eat to their fill. And it is a proper meal, not the ones we are used to from the trash bins on the streets,” Kadzo said.
Her three children, aged between two and five, were eating ravenously, having gone for days without a meal.
The feeding programme is done monthly and usually depends on contributions from foundation members and donors.
Rozina said the main objective is to encourage well-wishers to remember the needy in society.
She said some of the street boys engage in drug abuse to get away from their hardships.
“It is not that they like the glue they sniff. It is the pain they carry that pushes them to the glue. They just want to forget their problems. That is why it is important to show them love,” Rozina said.
The number of street families in Mombasa is unknown but estimated to have surpassed the 10,000 mark.
Efforts by the national and Mombasa county governments to round up street children and take them to a rehabilitation centre have proven futile.
In 2018, the Mombasa County Inspectorate arrested street families to shelter at Tononoka but the programme failed and they were back to the streets within a week.
"There was a public outcry after they started committing crimes," the then Inspectorate director Mohamed Amir said.
Only two homes, Wema Centre and SOS Children’s Village, are known to offer rehabilitation to street children.
Their capacities are however low.
Rozina said to help salvage the situation, all people must show them love.
“I personally don’t believe in handouts. But I wish I could do something more about it to help them out in a bigger way,” Rozina said.
