In 2021, Friends of Ngong Road conducted a survey of our first 113 alumni and learned that 80% of alumni had one or more jobs between May 2020 – May 2021.  This was an especially challenging time for employment due to the effects of COVID-19 restrictions on the Kenyan economy.  While encouraging to learn such a high percentage of alumni had had jobs, at the time of the survey, only 46% of respondents were employed. Among those employed 76% had a job in the formal economy. Among the unemployed, 90% had worked in the informal economy, and when COVID hit, their work disappeared.  

New emphasis on employment, an updated mission statement

These results led our board of directors to conclude we must do better. Since our inception, we have understood that Kenya’s formal economy has very high unemployment levels (about 40%) and that this last stage of life transformation, employment,  would be most challenging.  We have now made “employment” a fourth program pillar in our overall strategy (along with Education, Student Health & Well-Being and Supportive Community) and updated our mission statement to reflect our increased focus on helping graduates get and keep a job.  Our updated mission statement is:

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

Programs to support employment objective 
We currently have several initiatives in place or in development that support our goal of ensuring 75% of the alumni are employed within six months of graduation.  Some of these programs begin in high school, such as Life Skills training and learning about career options.  Other programs are focused on high school and post-secondary graduates, including:

• Job placement through support of the Kenyan Board of Directors who make referrals to organizations within their network.
• Karibu Loo Associate program– Karibu Loo (KL) is a portable sanitation business (owned by FoNR) that hires our graduates as part-time associates to help with the operations of the business, learning skills of organization, time management and working as part of a team. Karibu Loo has also hired graduates for full time roles in marketing and operations.  Since inception, more than 120 graduates have been employed by KL.
• Sales Academy – an intensive two-month sales training and six-month paid internship through a partnership with Yusudi Sales Academy. Two students will be joining this program in April as a pilot to see how successful it will be.
• TechMates Program – A tech internship program where STEM Graduates are taken through an “on the job training” on digital marketing, website development and management using WordPress, Google Ads, as well as advanced programming. The interns are later linked with external companies for contract jobs. 
• Entrepreneurship training – Targeting  alumni who are interested in starting a small enterprise by providing basic business creation training and linking them to funding opportunities. 

Elsewhere in this newsletter, you will find more information about the TechMates Program. In the next five years, we expect to launch more initiatives focused on helping graduates get jobs.  We know that when you begin life in extreme poverty the only way your life is truly transformed is if you get (and keep) a job.

By Susan Plimpton

Almost 15 years ago, we accepted the sponsorship of Lorine, at that time a young girl of about 10 years of age.  When I met her, she had a big smile on her face but found me a bit intimidating and looked down at the ground when I shook her hand.  Her father had died recently from AIDS and her mother, also positive, was weakened by an illness.  Lorine was helping with cooking and washing while also going to school.  Even then her mother knew that a good education was the only possible way to give Lorine a chance at a better life and thus applied for sponsorship in the Ngong Road program. Over the years, Lorine gradually became more self-confident. We loved communication through email and had fun times shopping when I was in Nairobi. Several years after “adopting” Lorine I learned that her brother, Emmanuel, was also available for sponsorship and we agreed to take him on as well. Emmanuel was a little more reserved but very motivated academically in primary school which enabled him to enter a competitive secondary school. 

Both Lorine and Emmanuel were accepted by Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology for a two-year certificate program after they completed secondary school, Lorine in Business Studies and Emmanuel in Business Information Technology. Upon completing the program, Lorine self-financed herself to go on for a 4 year Bachelor’s degree in Business Studies and now works in a financial position at British East African Tobacco Company in Nairobi.

Emmanuel is an IT intern at the Ngong Road Children’s Foundation, one of the first “TechMates”. He is so proficient in information technology and cyber security that he has a second internship at Lido Nation as an Intern/Junior Developer.  Emmanuel has also been invited by the Swiss non-profit organization, United People Global, to participate in a week-long leadership and sustainability program this summer at Hurricane Island Center for Science and Leadership in Rockland, Maine. He is hoping to obtain his U.S. visa to attend.

 My husband David and I visited Lorine and Emmanuel pre-pandemic and were so impressed and proud of the young adults they have become.  Both have matured into self-confident and poised individuals who have every intention of contributing to the development of their country. They truly are examples of the transformation that can be achieved by the children sponsored by Friends of Ngong Road at the Ngong Road Children’s Foundation.

 Lorine says . . .

My experience of being a beneficiary of the NRCF program has been educational, adventurous, and amazing. From the yearly camps to the overflow of support from my sponsor and the organization. NRCF has been very instrumental in shaping the woman that I have become through the Life Skills training, educational support since the beginning of my O level (grade school) to the end of my A level (high school), and also the feeding program that helped my mind be at ease over when the next meal would come. I look forward to running my own business and sponsoring a child. Again I say thank you to the organization for the opportunity.

Warm regards,

Lorine

Emmanuel says… 

My experience at Ngong Road Children’s Foundation is one where I can use two words to describe it: “grateful and thankful”. I enrolled in the program in 2010 at age eleven years. My academic journey hasn’t been a smooth one. In fact, I could describe it as surfing through strong ocean waves, but NRCF was always there to help me surf the tides.

How the program has positively impacted my life

The program gave me a scholarship from primary school to university for my education. NRCF also provided Life Skills training and other support programs. I am currently interning as an ICT intern in the program as a TechMate. This internship has greatly empowered me economically and upscaled my technical skills on matters concerning information technology.

What does my future look like? 

I could describe my future from the lenses of an optimist. One that is promising and demanding as well. I view myself growing even better. This could be by adding more academic qualifications to my portfolio and having reliable years of experience in the business information, technology arena. Demanding in the aspect that all the achievements I want to make will require me to push myself beyond ordinary limits. I do believe that this far I have proven that I am capable of being and doing better and the rate at which I am growing is intensifying rather than slowing.

Thank you all,

Emmanuel