News - Page 2 of 52 - Friends of Ngong Road

September 18, 2021 By Kelvin Thuku 1 Comment

COVID-19 Update

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to create havoc globally, positivity rates in Kenya continue to rise and fall in multiple waves. President Uhuru Kenyatta refers to this pattern as a “’containment seesaw.”

Like other countries, Kenya is trying to manage the Delta variant. Within the slums of Nairobi, poor sanitation and overcrowded living conditions make social distancing impossible. Positivity rates rise and fall causing constant uncertainty which has brought about a renewed survival instinct in the Kenyan population.

The Kenya Government and the Ministry of Health have instituted measures such as wearing masks outside of private homes to mitigate the spread of the variant and shorten the next wave. A COVID-19 vaccine return to work policy for all civil servants has been implemented. Individuals in the government employ are required to be vaccinated so they can resume work physically and improve service delivery. The Kenyan military is required to get vaccinated, or they will not be paid.

It’s been 17 months since the first case of COVID-19 was reported in Kenya. One year later, in March 2021, Kenya rolled out a National Vaccine Deployment Plan to inoculate 10 million adults by June 2022 and 16 million by June 20, 2023. At the end of September, 4.5M doses will have been administered. However, this is a small dent in the approximately 40 million people aged 12 and over. It is slow due to limited vaccine availability and challenges with reaching the people in rural areas with the road system in poor condition.

At NRCF, we are adopting a similar policy due to our work which involves interaction with students, families, donors, and other stakeholders. We are pleased that progress is being made as 75% have at least the first dose, most with the AstraZeneca vaccine. It’s our goal to have all staff fully vaccinated by year-end. Fortunately we have had only one student and three alumni be diagnosed with COVID-19. Two of those alumni work at Karibu Loo. The student and three alumni have all recovered.

September 18, 2021 By Kelvin Thuku Leave a Comment

Elimu Hub is a reality!

We want to send a sincere thank you to all our students, supporters and donors who have made Elimu Hub possible. And a special thanks to South Metro Minneapolis Evening Rotary Club and the Rotary Club of Kikuyu for partnering with NRCF/FoNR in this noble project. You have all overwhelmed us with your generous response to the campaign this summer as we surpassed the goal substantially.

The additional gifts have allowed us to build a larger Elimu Hub that will better serve our needs, not just now, but in the future as we grow. Instead of using five 20-foot containers, for a total of 800 square feet, we are expanding it to seven, totaling 960 square feet of space for our library and computer lab. The work will commence this month and we are excited to welcome the students in a couple of months. Elimu Hub will be more than just a physical place. It’s where students can support one another, alumni can return to network with another and mentor younger students, and where Wepowerment can happen.

Thank you again!

September 18, 2021 By Paula Meyer Leave a Comment

Letter from Paula

Dear friends,

Our mission since inception has been to support life transformation through education and ultimately employment. In 2021, we have come to believe we must increase our focus and effectiveness on the employment dimension of our mission.

Much of the employment in Kenya is called “casual”. Since there aren’t enough job opportunities in the formal Kenyan economy, people must create their own employment to survive. Most families of students in our program support themselves with casual labor. At the low end, this means cooking food to sell in the slums or running a small kiosk or doing day construction labor. If you are educated, casual labor may be contract or temporary work.

In May 2021, Friends of Ngong Road conducted a survey of alumni that we call The First 100. We surveyed 112 alumni of the program and received 95 responses. We learned that:

80% of alumni have had one or more jobs in the past twelve months.
At the time of the survey, only 46% of alumni were employed. Among that group, more than 80% had a job in the formal economy.
Among the unemployed, more than 70% had been working in the casual economy and when COVID hit, their work disappeared.
59% of alumni are supporting at least one other person – a child, a parent, a sibling.

Our conclusions are that we must provide more support to help students gain employment in the formal Kenyan economy. Kenya’s employment picture is certainly not at its best due to COVID-19. Nonetheless, our board of directors concluded we must do better. We are working to accelerate our efforts to support long-term employment by:

Deepening our understanding of areas where job opportunities exist in Kenya and then ensuring our students are preparing themselves in areas where there are employment opportunities.
Preparing students for employment during high school by teaching them about what kinds of jobs exist and the skills needed to get those jobs, teaching self-awareness so they become more astute about where they are likely to succeed and teaching interviewing/communication skills. We call these programs Life Skills and now deliver curriculum to all four years of high school.
Redoubling our efforts to partner with employers, local board members and other Kenyan supporters to connect students to that important first job.

A student with an education is much more likely to succeed than one who is not educated, but lives will only be transformed through employment. We will be working hard on this and sharing our findings. We support transformation through education AND employment!

August 3, 2021 By Kelvin Thuku Leave a Comment

Creating Elimu Hub – A Collaborative Experience

Students, alumni and staff are all very excited about the prospects of Elimu Hub becoming a reality. Part of what makes it so exciting is that it began as a small idea about how we could create more space for the Computer Lab at the new NRCF offices. But then as thoughts were shared with the Friends of Ngong Road team, the idea grew. What about something that served more students, and perhaps alumni? What if we could dedicate space to an expanded library? Ideas and feedback were shared back and forth and all around about ways to build a new place that was special for our students. And then, we started dreaming about how could we design the space in a way that was eco-conscious, inexpensive, and inclusive. Thus, the solar-powered shipping container Hub was born.

After we together arrived at an overall design, the U.S. team came back with the thought of naming the place. At first, we were simply thinking we’d call it the “Student Resource Center”. But when we started to consider how to relate the name with our mission, our eyes opened to some creative thinking. Many of our ideas came from asking our students. That got them very excited.

In the end, we decided on “Elimu Hub”. ‘Elimu’ translates to ‘education’ and is aligned with our overall mission. ‘Hub’ helped express how our new place would become a center of activity, innovation, and creativity. The combined name is meaningful in the Kenyan context and it’s easily translatable to our English-speaking sponsors and supporters.

We followed up the new name with creating some wonderful graphics that brought together the physical design of the containers, bringing to life the idea of a central hub. The graphics expressed vitality and creativity and along with the building renderings, Elimu Hub is becoming more real every day.

Each and every week, NRCF and FONR meet as an Operations Committee to share information, express ideas, and work together through issues that keep the organization running smoothly. Last year’s Food from Friends campaign is another example of successful collaboration. We worked to identify the critical needs of the families as a result of the pandemic, and quickly figured out ways to source and safely distribute food support. This was new to all of us and we worked well together to ensure all of our families got through the pandemic at the height of the 2020 crisis.

Our collaborative working relationship is also an essential part of our annual planning process. From September through December each year, we work together to budget and plan activities, programs, and campaigns both in the US and in Kenya. Working together as a united team, with strong communications and appreciation for differing perspectives has made it possible for us to collaboratively manage for the long term and respond to short term issues.

By establishing this style of communication and collaboration, we were able to dream up and pursue Elimu Hub in a relatively short period of time. We are thrilled to be able to bring this safe, reliable resource to our students in Nairobi. We look forward to bringing you along on this journey.