Archives for February 2018

It’s not too early to save the date for this year’s Annual Gathering to be held at Surly Brewing Company from 5:00 – 8:00 p.m. Hear stories of students transforming their own lives through education, meet a special guest from Kenya, purchase beautiful handmade items from Kenya and enjoy a Surly beer. All are welcome!

Dear Friends of Ngong Road,

We would like to extend our appreciation to our sponsors, donors, volunteers and well-wishers for their great support in 2017. The year ended well and we are glad to report that we have started 2018 on a high note. However, while every day is becoming better and better at NRCF (Ngong Road Children’s Foundation), we have a significant and growing need for sponsors. Currently we have a list of over 200 children that are waiting to be sponsored. It breaks our hearts when needy parents and guardians come to our office every day asking whether their child has been successful in getting a sponsor yet.

My Personal Experience

I was brought up in a family where my Dad was a firm believer in education. His philosophy of life was, “Instead of giving my children the fish to eat, I want to empower them to learn how to fish themselves”. He was a crusader for education for all, especially for girls, so he sent us all to school. In my rural community, most families did not educate girls because they believed that the girls would get married and any investment made in their education would benefit the marital family, not the parental family. My Dad supported the education of many children (both relatives and non-relatives) and from an early age instilled in us the virtue of helping others. This involved sharing our home to accommodate the needy and even sharing our parents with the many children who referred to them as Dad and Mum for the support they received. From the lessons I learned from my Dad, I currently support the education of five children (both relatives and non-relatives) from my home town in Malava, Kakamega County. They are at different levels of school ranging from university, middle level colleges, high schools and primary schools.

Typical African Philosophy

In Africa, the extended family benefits from the affluence of their kinsmen. One African proverb summarizes this: “Shorter trees in a forest climb on taller ones in order to survive”. Among the groups who benefit are the sick, the poor, the disabled, women and children. For a long time Africans have shouldered problems afflicting their parents, siblings, friends, relatives and even neighbors. This included bringing them up. The better off provided food, shelter, clothes, education, medical care and a supportive community. Providing such support is a common practice for most Kenyans.

The Kenyan Rural vs Urban Divide

However, the situation in urban centers is different. Many urban Kenyans already support family members so it is difficult for them to support needy children in the city who may have lost their entire family to HIV/AIDS. For the few local Kenyans who do provide support to city children, they cannot commit for long, because they may have other responsibilities like family members or elderly parents in the village who are depending on them for their livelihood.

Most families of our sponsored children left their rural areas with the hope of finding greener pastures in the city but most of them find themselves scratching out an existence in slums. Slums are usually characterized by high rates of poverty and unemployment. They are commonly seen as breeding grounds for social problems such as crime, drug addiction, alcoholism, high incidence of mental illness and suicide. Slum dwellers also exhibit high incidence of disease due to unsanitary conditions, malnutrition, and lack of basic health care.

Why we continue to need overseas sponsors

Most of our children at NRCF reside in this kind of environment. They do not have economically stable relatives who can support them. Their parents or guardians work in casual manual jobs that pay a dollar or less a day. With the little money they have, most of them prioritize providing a single meal daily for the family over education for their children. Even with the Kenyan government’s introduction of subsidized education, other requirements such as books, uniforms or transit force children from poor backgrounds to drop out of school.

With the unstable political environment in Kenya during the last six months, the economy is not doing well. The burden is on the taxpayer who has also to overcome the rising cost of living to survive. Typically, available funds after meeting existing responsibilities towards the extended family are even lower than before.

As part of the NRCF family, we want to make the world a better place than we found it by touching the souls of those who are disadvantaged by fate. By doing so, their lives can be transformed. In return, they may touch other souls when they succeed in life. We therefore appeal to potential sponsors to join our NRCF family to assist these deserving cases. Giving is not because someone has excess wealth but rather because of the heart of giving.

Once more, my gratitude goes to the sponsors, donors, volunteers and stakeholders of the NRCF programme for their endless efforts and sacrifice.

Maureen Mulievi
Programme Director
Ngong Road Children’s Foundation

Karibu Loo is off to a very strong start in 2018, largely due to several significant long-term rentals. Here are the highlights:

Long-term rentals. The portable sanitation business in the U.S. is primarily based upon long-term rentals. It is virtually impossible to build a successful portable sanitation business by only supplying to events, however events have constituted most of our business to date in Kenya. Long-term rentals are an essential ingredient to profits as they ensure a steady stream of revenue to cover costs.

In January, Karibu Loo rented out 66 units for about 15 days to a unit of the British Army that is training the Kenyan Army and another 10 units to a Chinese construction firm for the entire month. Both of these clients are candidates for long-term contracts. In addition, we have weekend long-term rentals at several churches. Together, these long-term contracts plus normal event business generated just over $2,000 of profit in January.

Employment. Five of our graduates are employed by Karibu Loo in marketing (1), operations (3), and accounting (1). In addition we employ many recent high school graduates as “sales and operations associates” whose responsibilities include keeping the loos clean and well supplied at events around Nairobi. This is a good way to provide income for these students and teach them basic workplace etiquette – showing up on time, dressing appropriately, speaking confidently with clients, and following through on responsibilities.

Issues. The biggest challenge faced by the business today is that our only truck has become very unreliable. The truck has served us well for the past several years but is increasingly prone to breakdowns. We have had to outsource movement of loos and cleaning services when the truck was not functional which cuts into our margins. We are building a new trailer that will be pulled by our pickup truck and can carry six loos.

A second challenge faced by the business is receivables. We have worked hard to reduce receivables, but getting customers to pay on a timely basis in Kenya is a recurring problem.

Growing the business. We are considering ordering more cabins and an additional exhauster. We have had many days in January and February when the constraint on business volume was lack of available cabins and the logistics of having only one exhauster and truck has become too risky. Meanwhile, we are raising funds to replace the old truck immediately.

Once our students graduate from a post-secondary program, their chances of becoming employed are over 90 percent. As of the end of 2017, 93 percent of our students were employed or in internships that we believe will lead to employment. But getting them there is hard work.

Over the last ten years, only 83 percent of our students who began secondary school (high school) completed their education. And 87 of those who entered post-secondary completed their post-secondary education. Students drop out due to unintended pregnancies, getting caught up with the wrong crowd, drugs and other challenges teenagers with significant trauma in their background often experience across the globe.

We are determined to increase our secondary and post-secondary graduation rates. To do so, we are kicking-off two new programs. In December we launched a sexual and reproductive health program, and just last month, Meghan and Evan Feige traveled to Kenya for the second time to lead a two-week life skills training. The training is designed to support recent secondary graduates in making the important transition from secondary to post-secondary education and into a career following their post-secondary education.

Meghan is the Global Talent and Performance Manager at Cargill Inc. and led students through topics such as personality style, effective communication and listening, emotional intelligence and resume and interview preparation. Evan is a Senior Planner in Graphics and Design Collaborations at Target. In the follow-up survey, students said:

• “I had to critically evaluate myself and think of my inner being and how I carry out my things. I had never done this before, so it challenged and stretched me.”
• “The training helped me learn how to communicate better with people and to provide the correct information. It also helped increase my confidence.”
• “I believe I can now make wiser decisions for myself.”

  The program is going to be launched with all secondary students and recent secondary graduates in November of 2018 in partnership with a Rotary Global Grant. The South Metro Minneapolis Evenings and Kikuyu Rotary Clubs are sponsoring the program and are instrumental in making such an urgently needed program possible for our students to continue succeeding and transforming their lives.