“I woke up very early in the morning. We did not have much water, so we washed our face in the morning and our feet at night ... if there was any food left over I would pack it up for us to carry to school.”
— Sr. Rose Wangui, VHM
The mission of the Mercy Center Foundation is to help combat disease and poverty in Lare, Kenya, by providing compassionate and humanitarian assistance toward sustainable and affordable clean water, health care, education and micro-enterprise initiatives.
In 1994, Sr. Rose Wangui joined the order of the Visitation of Holy Mary (VHM), or the Sisters of the Visitation at their Georgetown Visitation Monastery, in Washington, D.C; but she was unable to leave her people completely behind. Her compelling stories of their needs and desires to connect with the developed world were shared with local Washingtonians. Moved by the urgency and compassion in her voice, a committed group of benefactors adopted Sr. Rose’s dream of improving the basic living standards for Lare’s villagers and providing access to basic health care, clean water and more recently to building of a girls secondary school for those vulnerable and marginalized in society. The Mercy Center Foundation, USA has been established for the purpose of raising awareness about the rights of the child, especially, the girl child and providing development funds and advocacy for the building of a girl’s school, named the Mother of Mercy Girls Secondary School in Lare, Kenya.