Single Mothers In Nairobi a Church Response

Abstract

Single motherhood was not a common phenomenon in Kenya and Africa at large. However, this does not mean that the problems never existed in African traditional societies at all. Single mothers mostly widows were there but they were taken care of by the extended family. In African traditional set up, each community had ways and means of dealing with this problem within its own community structures. Today, single mothers are no longer taken care of by our society. Nowadays they have to take care of themselves and their children. This is a real challenge that the Church has to face and address as we move towards the new millennium. In our research, we are going to divide our work into four chapters and each chapter will deal with some specific aspects of single motherhood. Each chapter will also have its introduction and summary. In chapter one, we will discuss about who are single mothers. It is in this chapter that we will try to identify different types of single mothers in our modem society. However, in the same chapter, we will concentrate more on analyzing different categories of single mothers and their causes. After identifying as well as analyzing who are single mothers, the next step will lead us to the second chapter. In this chapter, we will point out some facts and realities of single mothers. In addition to this, we will also try to highlight some factors that seem to be the causes of single mothers in our society today. In chapter three, our study will deal more with the Church and single mothers. In connection to this, the following aspects will be highlighted more in this presentation: the Church's understanding of family, the Church's response to single mothers and the current pastoral response to single mothers. However, in our case study, we will present a concrete survey that will be conducted in one of the parish in Nairobi in order to establish how far the Church has reached out to support single mothers' group. In fourth chapter, we will examine and evaluate what has been done by the Church at the pastoral level in order to empower single mothers to become efficient agents of family values. Then we will give our recommendations that we think may help our priests, religious men and women and those who are in pastoral fields so that they may have more understanding and positive attitudes towards single mothers.