While our primary purpose is to provide education, we know that nutrition, good health, and a safe living environment are essential to learning.  To maximize student success, we support the health and well-being of our students by providing regular meals and medical care, in addition, to support and training programs for Sexual and Reproductive Health, Drug Awareness and Abuse, and Mental Health.

Nutrition

Since the inception of our program, we have provided our students with a nutritious breakfast and lunch at school. Through these programs, each elementary-age child receives at least two meals daily during the school week. We offer meals directly to our students in Nelson Mandela Elementary and contract caterers to cook for our students at our other elementary schools. High school students are in boarding school and receive three meals a day.

We provide lunch each Saturday during the Saturday Program and both breakfast and lunch during school holidays and breaks. Our caterers ensure students get a balanced diet by cooking a variety of meals for the students, including “Chapati,” a flatbread that is a favorite of Kenyan children. 

Case managers often identify situations where families need food aid during home or school visits. Families in a particularly dire situation may request family food aid, and we provide basic foods to address the temporary problem.  

Health Care

During the Saturday Program, our contracted nurse performs routine exams on a rotating basis and sees students who are ill. If a student becomes ill, their parent or guardian visits the Ngong Road Children’s Foundation administrative office for a voucher to visit a clinic for treatment. 

Clean water and sanitation facilities are often unsafe in parts of Kenya including Nairobi.  Therefore, an essential preventative treatment is deworming medications which our Saturday Program nurse regularly administers in addition to weekly multivitamins. We also provide basic dental and vision care.

Drug and Substance Abuse Awareness and Mental Health 

We serve some of the most vulnerable children on the planet. Life in the slums can be unimaginable so our students must receive the best support to ensure they can transform their lives. 

Drug use is a reality for many living in the slums. Given the prevalence of crime, gang violence, mental illness, and peer pressure, we know our students’ success can be derailed by drug usage. That’s why we educate our students about drugs and their impact on one’s life. Our program creates awareness of drugs and substance abuse and information on the types of drugs abused and empowers students to adopt healthy behaviors that prevent abuse and the associated risks.

It’s also vital that we educate our students about developing and maintaining good mental health. To transform the lives of students, we want them to be able to identify any mental health concerns and know what to do if problems arise so that they can seek help.

Sexual and Reproductive Health Program.

Many of our students have witnessed family members suffer or die from HIV/AIDS. The Kenyan education sector largely promotes an abstinence-only curriculum, failing to emphasize important topics of contraception, sexually transmitted diseases, and HIV. The knowledge gap perpetuates common myths such as that contraceptives can cause infertility.

Recognizing that many young people are sexually active and some are forced or coerced into sexual activity, we want to ensure that adolescents in our program have the resources and knowledge to make informed decisions. Based on student focus groups and extensive research on best practices in Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) education, we worked with Planned Parenthood Global and Tulane University to develop a Youth Peer Provider (YPP) SRH Program. 

A dozen post-secondary students along with the staff are trained to provide accurate SRH information and receive coaching on how to share this knowledge with their peers. They also receive condoms and vouchers for access to contraception, emergency contraception, and STI testing which they disseminate.

Our Story

Friends of Ngong Road was founded in 2006 by Paula Meyer after a family trip to Kenya. During that trip, she met Pastor Peter Ndungu, who had recently returned to Kenya after completing a Master’s Degree at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, MN. Peter was serving a congregation in the area known as the Dagoretti slums of Nairobi and was disturbed by the number of children who could not attend school because their parents and/or guardians had been affected by HIV/AIDS epidemic. These impoverished families were simply unable to afford the cost of a school uniform or modest school fees.

Focused in the Dagoretti slum in Nairobi, Kenya

In Swahili, “Ngong” means “knuckles” and the Ngong Hills are named after their shape, which looks like the knuckles on a fist. Our organization is named after ‘Ngong Road’, a busy two-lane road at the base of the Ngong Hills, on the outskirts of Nairobi. The Dagoretti slums, where our students live, sit alongside this road. While traveling down it, you experience loud music, packed vehicles, many pedestrians, and merchants selling everything from produce to clothing and furniture. Our campus also sits along this road, and our students participate in Saturday Program at a field next to our office, facing Ngong Road. It is truly the ‘main street’ of our students’ lives.

In 2020, about 1.5 million Kenyan adults (or 4.5% of the adult population) lived with HIV/AIDS. Kenya has the third largest impact of the epidemic in the world, along with Mozambique and Uganda. (Source: UNAIDS Data 2020). When our program began in 2006, more than 1 million children in Kenya had been orphaned due to AIDS. By 2020, it’s estimated that 690,000 Kenyan children ages 0 – 17 live as AIDS orphans. And the incidence of AIDS-affected children in the Dagoretti slums remains very high. Children in our program live primarily in Dagoretti where the median household income is under two dollars per day. Approximately 50% of the children in our program are orphans, and the other 50% live with a surviving HIV+ parent. A small percentage of our students learn they too are HIV positive and we ensure they have access to antiretroviral (ARV) medications.

For a child living in the slums of Nairobi, the only real opportunity to pull themselves, and potentially their families, out of poverty is to get an education and find a job and support themselves. Through the financial support and personal encouragement of sponsors, students have the opportunity to succeed and transform their lives.

We partner with schools with a proven track record of success

We don’t own or operate any schools; instead, we partner with schools with a demonstrated track record of delivering solid academic outcomes. Students apply for participation in our program and pass a rigorous selection process before being paired with a sponsor who funds their schooling and supports their development. Students start the program between the ages of 7 and 9 (equivalent to grades 2-4) and stay in the program until graduation from a post-secondary school. When we started sponsoring students in January of 2007, 60 children were on their way with school uniforms, shoes, and fees paid. Friends of Ngong Road’s U.S. staff handles marketing and development, accounting, and operations activities, with considerable assistance from volunteers. The Kenya staff, through the Ngong Road Children Foundation, runs the day-to-day operations, case management, engagement, and additional programming with students, their families, and the schools they attend.

By taking an innovative approach to organization and service delivery and recruiting a cadre of highly engaged, talented volunteers and staff, one of the most at-risk populations in the world are helped to transform their lives. Learn more about our program and its impact and read stories of transformed lives. Be sure to follow us on Facebook or subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date.