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About Us

Friends of Ngong Road provides education and support for children living in Nairobi’s slums whose families have been affected by HIV/AIDS. In five years it has grown from an idea into an organization supporting over 350 children by pairing sponsors with specific children, fostering the development of a mutually beneficial relationship.

Program Overview

Friends of Ngong Road (FoNR), a Minnesota-based 501(c)(3), and Ngong Road Children Association (NRCA), a registered Kenya NGO, operate with the shared mission of providing education and support for impoverished Nairobi children whose families have been affected by HIV/AIDS. By taking an innovative approach to organization and service delivery and recruiting a cadre of highly engaged, talented volunteers, FoNR has demonstrated that its model can help transform the lives of one of the most at-risk populations in the world.

Our Program

The program offers children support in three key areas:
 

  • Education (school fees, uniforms, books and supplies)  Learn more
  • Safety and well-being (breakfast and lunch each weekday, home environment safety checks by our case-workers plus basic medical care) Learn more
  • Supportive community (case-worker support, Saturday child development program, lending library, computer lab and annual camp experience for every child) Learn more

We have no paid employess in the U.S., although we do contract out some professional services.  Information on our founders is available here, and information on our staff in Kenya is available here.

 

Paula in a three minute video explaining the
orgins of Friends of Ngong Road

The Problem We Seek to Solve

The devastation caused by HIV/AIDS in Kenya has left the country with approximately 1 million orphaned children and many more living with a surviving HIV+ parent. Children in this program all live in the slums of Dagoretti, Nairobi where the median household income is under two dollars per day. Approximately 50% of the children in the program are orphans and the other 50% live with a surviving HIV+ parent; 5% of children in the program are themselves HIV+.

Without the opportunity provided by a high-quality education, these children would be sentenced to lives of continuing poverty and would be an economic drag on Kenyan society. Unfortunately, Kenya’s public education system is not up to the task as it is woefully underfunded and inconsistent in quality. FoNR believes that placing at-risk children in high-performing private schools for primary education and public high schools gives them the best chance of success and will have a long-term positive ripple effect on Kenya, Africa and the world.