2023 June Archives - Friends of Ngong Road

June 22, 2023 By Victor Wambua Leave a Comment

Camp is back!

Students in Orange — students at grammar camp

We are delighted to announce the return of camp! After a pause due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we have resumed our camps, and they are better than ever. NRCF Camp is designed to provide educational value and a fun-filled experience, as well as an opportunity for our students to spend much-needed time outside of the slums. Camp empowers students by equipping them with essential skills for their futures.

We have restructured camp based on school levels to enhance its effectiveness and will take place throughout the year instead of in August. The camps include:

Grammar Camp
Junior Camp
Senior Camp
Post-Secondary Career Camp
Alumni Camp

For the younger students, our Grammar Camp will be a one-day event. This camp will include a visit to a national park or conservancy, providing an exciting opportunity for exploration and adventure.

Junior Camp aims to inspire curiosity and provide students with tools and support to realize their potential. Offering a blend of fun activities, promoting innovation and creativity, life skills development, and projects aligned with the Competency-Based Curriculum newly taught in Kenyan schools.

Senior Camp supports the smooth transition to secondary school. They will engage in team-building activities and workshops focused on personal development and goal setting. They will prepare older students to act as buddies to the younger students. Camps cultivate confidence and resilience in students, equipping them with vital soft skills for navigating high school successfully.

The Post-Secondary Career Camp took place from April 21st to 23rd with the theme “WePower PS Career Camp,”. This camp focused on empowering students as they explored various career options and gained insights into the placement process and post-secondary life. The camp included discussions between high school graduates paired with “buddies”, post-secondary students in a variety of careers. External facilitators shared valuable insights about career choices and course selection.

Alumni Camp and the Post-Secondary Career Camp took place earlier this year. The Alumni Camp, held from January 20th to 22nd celebrated the achievements of the 2022 post-secondary graduates and welcomed them into the Alumni Department. The camp featured job preparedness training, employability skills development, and emotional intelligence workshops. Participants received valuable training from “Be The Leader” (an organization in Kenya providing this specialized training). They covered topics such as job interview skills, entrepreneurship, and career development. These sessions empowered the alumni and enhanced their competitiveness in the job market.

We are thrilled to bring back our camps. We eagerly anticipate the students’ acquisition of new knowledge and the joy they will experience through these activities.

June 22, 2023 By Victor Wambua Leave a Comment

Amy’s Trip to Kenya

Amy, Chief Operating Officer of Friends of Ngong Road, recently visited the Ngong Road Children’s Foundation (NRCF) and Karibu Loo (KLL) offices in Nairobi, Kenya. She was there for two weeks. Her objectives were to work with NRCF and KLL staff on a number of financial and operational projects and to visit with students and alumni of our programs. Some highlights from Amy’s visit include:

Visited with Sponsored Students and Alumni

The most fun part of visiting Kenya is spending time with kids and young adults. Amy spent time at the Saturday program, popped in on alumni in a coding “boot camp” in the amazing ElimuHub computer lab, and visited with the young people she, her husband Daryl, and son Nate have sponsored. Their sponsored post-secondary students and alumni gave Amy helpful insights on their experiences in the program which she has shared with leaders. And if you love babies, it will make you smile to know that Amy met the one-year-old daughter of the alumni she and Daryl first sponsored. Seeing the impact of sponsorship on the next generation is what it’s all about.

Attended Employment Programs for Alumni

Small Business Training – Amy attended a small business training session for alumni interested in starting or improving their small businesses. This very practical training, which is particularly focused on start-ups, is done in partnership with the Kenya Small Business Development Center. The Saturday training usually takes place at the NRCF office, but that day it was held at Strathmore University and was facilitated by Isaac Mwangi, an instructor at Strathmore and one of the county leads for the Kenya Small Business Development Center.

Metrics! Since joining NRCF, Martha has significantly advanced our employment programs to support alumni. We now need a way to assess the impact of these and future programs. Martha, Kelvin, and Amy brainstormed a list of metrics – measurable indicators of alumni success and upward mobility – we could use to assess the impact of these programs over time. This working session has already led to a plan to update this summer’s annual alumni survey to capture key indicators and develop the analytics for our monitoring and assessment.

Focused on Finance Processes and Controls

A key focus of Amy’s trips is always financial processes and controls, both for NRCF and KLL. On this trip, she determined that our processes are working well and as designed, but everyone was excited (really!) to find ways to be more effective and efficient. They tackled and found great opportunities in areas like procurement, managing inventory of supplies, and school fee payments. At Karibu Loo, they completed a post-implementation review of the team’s fantastic work in 2022 to leverage our accounting system more fully for the sales and invoicing processes.

Reviewed NRCF Governance

The Board – Amy joined the NRCF board meeting in person to report on finance matters. After the meeting, she and Kelvin Thuku hosted a celebration to welcome two new board members, Neena Shah and Jeff Nthiga who bring important skills and new energy to the NRCF board. They also bid farewell to retired board members Robert Murimi and Anupa Sanghrajka with thanks for their many contributions. Martha Otieno (our employment programs officer) and several alumni joined the event to share their inspiring stories with board members.

Engaging Alumni in Governance – In its meeting, the board discussed and agreed that having the voice of alumni at the table would be very useful and agreed to develop an alumni advisory board member role. This role will leverage alumni experiences and perspectives in our programming and give them an opportunity to learn how the governance of an NGO works.

Overall, Amy said it was a highly productive trip. Seeing the passion and commitment of the staff, the energy of the students, and the impact that is being made, was wonderful to experience.

June 22, 2023 By Victor Wambua Leave a Comment

DirectEd Coding Bootcamp

On April 12, 2023, Ngong Road Children’s Foundation signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the DirectEd Development Foundation. This relationship will help pave the way for our students to enter the programming era, which has become an indispensable skill in our digitally-driven world.

The DirectEd Development Foundation, a UK-based charitable organization, is dedicated to providing evidence-based, scalable, and cost-effective coding bootcamps and scholarships to under-resourced, high-potential students in Africa. We are thrilled to be part of this valuable partnership.

Through this collaboration, 25 of our 2022 high school graduates participated in a three-part program specifically tailored for students like them facilitated by tutors from DirectEd. The first phase of the program was a one-week coding course that took place from April 24th to April 29th. The twenty-five students registered for this virtual training course were provided with access links to the online Google Classroom and learning resources for the bootcamp.

To complete their online studies, students had access to desktop computers in the computer lab in Elimu Hub, where they downloaded and studied Python (a popular coding language) modules, submitted assignments and exercises, and utilized the Zoom application for virtual meetings and coding practice. Students participated in other workshop sessions focused on effective learning and time management.

On April 29th, 21 students sat for the bootcamp’s final exam. Based on the examination results, 14 students advanced to the second phase of the program (the main program) which is an intensive 12-week computer-based program.

The main program began on May 15th. In preparation, students were given the opportunity to apply for the DirectEd Access Scholarship. The scholarship provides them with a laptop, a tutorial voucher, and a stipend to attend the program. Six out of the 14 students were awarded Access Scholarships. The other eight students will receive laptops from the Friends of Ngong Road Laptop Lending Program,

We express our deepest gratitude to the DirectEd Development Foundation for helping empower our students through technology.

June 22, 2023 By Victor Wambua Leave a Comment

Susan Boren Visits Nairobi

Recently, our sponsors Susan Boren and Steve King had the opportunity to visit our campus in Nairobi. Here are Susan’s impressions:

My first visit to the Friends of Ngong Road program in Nairobi was in December of 2019 when I met the three students my husband, Steve King, and I sponsored. It was an inspirational day to meet these young people for the first time and have the opportunity to see their homes and meet their parents/guardians. When I left I really understood how our support was changing lives.

On May 31st of this year, Steve and I visited the program together. So much has changed! New offices, new computer lab, new library, new Blockchain Lab, growth of Karibu Loo, and more students being served. We were overwhelmed by the professionalism of the team and the genuine warmth with which we were received. Steve and I met all of the staff had a chance to see the new library and computer lab (both housed in the Elimu Hub). We meet recent alumni, all of whom introduced themselves as “beneficiaries “ of the program.

We support several African charitable organizations, but none are as professional or effectively demonstrate the impact of donors. While the office visit was great and reassuring that there is a holistic support system behind every student. The best part of the day was spending time with Gloria, Faith, Ryan, and David – the students we support. We fed giraffes, visited a snake-rich zoo, enjoyed lunch, went shopping, and visited each family’s homes.

We left with full hearts knowing that our sponsorship support is vital, but only one part of a caring support system that encourages these students to excel. The only sad note to our day was learning that there are 50 students on the website waiting for sponsors…and that’s a small part of those who would be qualified to join.

Thank you to Kelvin, Tunda, and Martha for planning an awesome day!

We hope all of our sponsors can visit the program in Nairobi. See the accompanying article on our next group trip opportunity.