Friends of Ngong Road

We empower Nairobi children living in poverty to transform their lives through education and support, leading to employment.

Archives for January 2023

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The successful journey of Roseann

Roseann joined Ngong Road Children’s Foundation (NRCF) in 2007 as one of the beneficiaries for the education program from primary school, through Secondary School to University. Her education journey was made successful through the financial support of her sponsor Steve Lewis.

Roseann completed her primary school education in 2012 scoring excellently, at GSU primary school. This earned her a spot in Nembu Girls High School, one of the best secondary schools in Nairobi where she also performed excellently and transited to Maseno University to study a Bachelor’s Degree in Geospatial Information Science with IT, a course girls have always shied from. 

She however took it as a challenge and graduated in 2022 with a second Class Upper.

Roseann has held several leadership positions in her education journey beginning as a squad leader at Ngong Road Children’s Foundation, a Deputy School Captain, football Captain and Captain of students Campaign Against Drugs  at her high school. In Maseno University, she was a class representative.

She began her career at Kenya National Highways Authority, KeNHA, and later joined Digireg Kenya as a data operator in Kisumu County where she currently works. In her spare time, Roseann volunteers as an Environmental Champion and participates in  the UN-HABITAT- COVID-19 mitigation activities. Roseann also organizes a charity program at St Mary Magdalene Oasis of Peace Children’s Home in Kisumu County and a Street feeding program for street Children.

We wish Roseann a successful career journey.

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2023 Alumni Camp

The Alumni Camp was held from Friday, 20th January 2023 To Sunday, 22nd January 2023 at the Duara Flamingo Camp, located in Elementaita, Nakuru (Lake Elementaita Lodge). The camp was intended to celebrate the accomplishments of the 2022 post-secondary graduates and welcome them to the alumni association as well as have their first Job preparedness training.

We had a total of 36 campers that included 31 alumni, 3 staff members and 2 facilitators from the organization. The alumni slept in tents and their meals were prepared by the hotel chefs. We had a number of activities and training that were meant to develop their employability skills as well as their emotional intelligence. There was a training session that was conducted by Be The Leader (BTL) on job interview skills, digital marketing, entrepreneurship skills and career development. The objective of the training was to teach them how to be outstanding during an interview, how to make them visible to employers via social media and the basics of starting a business.

There were also lots of team competition activities like crazy games and Olympics. The alumni got a chance to visit the Kariandusi prehistoric site and African Diatomite Industries Ltd. They learnt about the mining of diatomite (from skeletons of very tiny animals called diatoms) and its uses.

The camp was a success and we hope that the alumni got impacted positively from all the training and activities. We hope that they use the skills gained to better equip themselves for the employment and self-employment sectors.

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A Young, Passionate Programmer-Lenox

Meet Lenox, an aspiring game developer. Lenox is in grade 6 in one of our focus schools. Before joining the program, he had no clear picture of what he wanted to become once he grew up. After getting a sponsor, he started attending our programs, one of them being Computer Training. Lenox fell in love with computers and he has barely missed a class since then. 

In early 2022 when the new students’ resource center (Elimu Hub) was constructed and the computer lab pimped with new powerful computers, Lenox was one of the proudest beneficiaries of the structure and he’s amongst the students that utilize the facility a lot.

Lenox has committed to all that gets taught to him during the computer classes and his best session is usually the programming ones where he gets to apply his critical and creative thinking skills. His programming skills are impressive especially when it comes to scratch programming.

Early January 2023 he was amongst five students that participated in a hackathon for scratch programming (Scratchathon) competition and he was voted one of the best students during the competition having led a team in developing a game using the scratch program and presenting it to the attendance on behalf of the team. He also got interviewed where he discussed his love for programming and his aspirations to become a web developer when he grows up.

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Class 8 candidates of 2022

In 2022, we had a total of 30 primary students (candidates) who sat for the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examinations. This is an examination that marks the end of primary education and paves the way for students to pursue their secondary education. These particular students were among the second-last batch of learners in the country under the 8-4-4 system to sit for KCPE.

The examination usually takes a few days to complete and it took place between November 28th and December 1st 2022. The top student in the country scored 431 out of 500 while of our candidates, the top student in the organization was Louse who scored 398 out of 500 marks! The mean grade for the class was 322 out of 500 which is above average performance. 

These students will soon be joining form one possibly at the end of this month in different learning institutions. We would like to congratulate them and wish them all the best as they transition into their secondary education.