Archives for December 2015

This has been an exciting year for our organization as two major changes have taken place and we have crafted a strategic plan that will guide us through 2020. A lot of our programs are working.

I’m Working!  It’s Working!  We have seen the result of nine years of work as some of our oldest students finish their post-secondary education and get jobs.  There is an article in the newsletter about our post-secondary program, describing how it will work and the results to date.  We now have 94 students who have finished their primary and secondary education.   All of our 2012 graduates are employed and more than half of our 2013 graduates are employed.  With each newsletter, we will profile students who have completed their education and are now employed.

Karibu Loo.   We have completed the pilot for Karibu Loo and have placed an order that will put us on the path of growing this business. We greatly appreciate the pilot results and hold a strong belief that the business has significant potential to generate income in support of our educational mission, while also providing employment opportunities to many of our graduates. In 2016, the company initiated the plan to expand and develop the business.

Vision 2020. In 2015, the Board had 3 planning sessions, backing a 5-year plan with 3 key initiatives:

1.     Capacity building – moving to professional management from today’s volunteer organization in the U.S. and building management capacity in Kenya;

2.     Financial sustainability – build Karibu Loo and the endowment fund to create a more enduring financial model for the organization;

3.     Return to growth – the board has endorsed the objective of growing to 1000 students actively supported plus alumni by 2020.

As has happened in the past 9 years, there will be many changes and challenges in the coming years.  However, with a clear strategy and the work of talented people, I feel optimistic we will be able to craft an enduring future for the organization.  As always, sincere thanks for your support.

Paula Meyer
President, Friends of Ngong Road

Friends of Ngong Road’s board of directors decided in 2008 that we aspire to “go deep” with the students we sponsor.  This principle led to the decision to continue with students through post-secondary training despite the increased expense.  We aspire to assist these young adults until they are ready to secure jobs in Kenya’s growing economy.

87 Students now in a post-secondary program

Our first high school graduating class was just five students in 2012, all of whom are now employed.  Since then, we have had 87 more students finish high school, with the largest class being the class of 2015 with 38 students.  We have learned a great deal as we have shaped this extension to our core program focused on primary and secondary education.

Three principles

We developed three principles to guide the post-secondary program:

1.     Formal acceptance:  We require that students formally acknowledge they plan to join the post-secondary program and understand their responsibilities, including attending computer skills training, obtaining a national identification card, and developing a proposal for their own post-secondary education by June of the year following graduation.

2.     Support based on academic achievement: Most students will qualify for a one-two year program that focuses on job skills training.  Only those who qualify for government scholarships will be given the opportunity to attend university, although exceptions may be granted from time to time.

3.     Realistic expectations: We have tight guidelines about the duration and cost of the courses and try to focus students on career paths likely to lead to jobs.

Differing rates of maturation

As is true in the U.S., young people mature at different tempos though most experience a great deal of growth and development from ages 18 through 22.  We have seen this in Kenya as our students move from unrealistic aspirations to reality-based plans.  Assisting them with that process requires a great deal of time, wisdom, and expertise.

New caseworker hired

In 2014, we hired Joy Obiya as our post-secondary caseworker.  Joy is the person who provides this coaching and guidance.  Imagine if every year you needed to help up to 40 young people decide on their career path!  Joy is courageous, honest, and very effective at providing guidance while still leaving the primary responsibility to the young person.

Promising results

• The class of 2012 includes four students who have finished their post-secondary education and all are employed in good jobs.
• Marline, the fifth student, enrolled in university and is working part-time.
• The class of 2013 was 12 students, two of whom elected not to pursue post-secondary education.  Of the remaining 10, two have finished their post-secondary program and are doing an internship.  Six have part-time work and are going to school.  The remaining two are in school full-time.
• The class of 2014 was 37 students.  Most have either started their post-secondary coursework or will do so in January.  Two students from this class had babies in the intervening year and we are still sorting out our approach to these two students.  Many of our students will complete their post-secondary coursework in 2016 or 2017 and we will support their efforts to get jobs.

It is especially exciting to begin to see the results of this program in lives transformed by work.  To see more, please watch this short video: “I’m Working, It’s Working”.

August 2015 Camp

In August we had our annual camp. This is the time we concentrate on letter writing to the sponsors and also making sure that children learn about leadership skills, interactive games, and hiking, among other things.

Tom has always attended Camp every year since its inception and through his leadership skills we have always learned a lot. This time we were able to work on Salesforce.com before camp started in order to make sure that it remains our managing tool for our work in Kenya. Some of the things that Tom helped on Salesforce are home visits reports, school visit reports, and letter reports as well as making sure that it is a tool that we can use on the ground to manage the work better in the future.

This year we went hiking around Mt. Longonot as well as boat riding where children were able to see hippopotami at Lake Naivasha. It was a wonderful time being with the children and we got to understand them even better.

Visit of Karen and Susan

Karen and Susan who are on the U.S. Board of directors visited us from 29th November to 5th December. Apart from bringing greetings from the U.S., we got to learn a lot. We covered a lot of mileage in post-secondary issues like making sure we are on track with the new graduates on how we will make sure that they get enrolled in colleges on time. We were also able to review the scholarship committee guidelines.

Karen was also very involved with the library and she gave us very good ideas on fundraising which we will implement come the year 2016. She worked a lot with our librarian, Norah, in making sure that the library is working and maintained for the benefit of the children. All in all, I would like to give my gratitude for their visit. Every time we have a visitor from the U.S. we feel blessed because we get to learn a lot.

Karibu Loo ltd.

I am very happy to report that 24 students from our program are now benefitting from part-time jobs from Karibu Loo. Apart from working for pay they also learn about timekeeping in employment, interaction with customers as they narrate their stories as well as being in a working environment. We are happy with Karibu Loo because all the income are to benefit NRCF in its mission.

Harrambe/Graduation.

Every year we normally hold a local fundraiser (Harambee). This year it took place on 5^th December and Karen and Susan were able to attend just before they left for the U.S.A. We managed to get food donation of 744 packets of maize flour from Kimfay, a company in Kenya who have been very supportive of our program, and 248 containers of shortening from Bimeda ( from our volunteer, Chris Adams) who are also a strong supporter of our mission and 100 food packages from Braeburn School where Leah Switzer (wife of our Karibu Loo General Manager, Michael Switzer) works. In total, we managed to raise Ksh. 344,000 both in cash and in-kind donations.

Peter Ndungu
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR