Friends of Ngong Road

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

Archives for February 2023

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Antony ‘s Story

Antony comes from a humble background, but this has not deterred him from succeeding academically. He joined the program and was immediately enrolled at one of our focus primary schools where he did his Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCPE) examination, and later, he joined a boys high school in Nairobi. Antony then pursued a course in Social Work and Community Development at East Africa Institute of Certified Studies (ICS). Since day one, Antony has always been determined with his studies and has always worked so hard. All through, he was performing very well. He believes success in life comes from education, supported by the program, which is his perfect weapon.  He is currently working towards that because he is yet to secure a job. 

He is determined to make a life of his own and possibly be able to transform that of his family too.  Antony says that the home situation is not good, but he wouldn’t want to live such a life.

He acknowledges the saying, “You can’t change your past, but you can work on your future.” This has been his driving force in working to make things better. Antony expresses gratitude for the program’s support and acknowledges the sponsor’s efforts.

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Maisy Story

Maisy joined the NRCF program when she was in Grade 5. She was raised by her mother and her grandmother in Nairobi.

Maisy worked hard in school through the support accorded to her by NRCF and finished her primary and secondary education. She later pursued a course in beauty therapy which has been her passion since her childhood.  

Maisy currently works in one of the best spas in Nairobi as a consultant beautician. She is able to comfortably support her mother and siblings. Her life and that of her family have been transformed through the support from her sponsor and the friends of Ngong Road in general. 

She is grateful to NRCF and more so her sponsor in the USA for believing in her and giving her the gift of education enabling her to better her life and that of her family. 

Transform a life today.

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TechMates Update

Since the launch of TechMates in 2021, we have had over 15 students benefit from the program. As of January 2023, six TechMates had completed their learning internships and transitioned to project-based contracts and two additional graduates were on internship. The project-based TechMates successfully completed their six months internship and gained the necessary skills needed to secure contract work for Ngong Road Children’s Foundation (NRCF), Friends of Ngong Road (FoNR), Karibu Loo, Limited (KLL) and other external clients. One of the external clients, Lido Nation, has so far recruited three digital marketers from the program to assist with website translation and management, and act as community outreach officers to create awareness of the Cardano eco system locally in Kenya. Lido Nation also employs five developer-track TechMates part time, on a contract basis.

In February 2023, an intern joined the developer path, and recruitment for four alumni is underway. So far, we have eight TechMates on the project-based contract working for NRCF/FoNR and KLL. In total we have 12 trained TechMates while two have dropped out. Two TechMates won full scholarships to MEST/Meltwater entreprenuerial training in Accra, Ghana. Of the active TechMates, half have part-time jobs with Lido Nation. They polish the Lido Nation website as well as creating new features.

Two of the TechMates on the digital marketing path have been able to secure other external clients. One of them, Tabitha, is currently working for Vobyl Tea as an administrative and marketing person. She is responsible for communicating with customers, packaging product, as well as carrying out deliveries among other roles. The other digital marketing TechMate, Sallyanne, has started working for DirectEd as a consultant/project freelancer. She leads Twitter marketing campaigns and develops NFT-based fundraising strategies for DirectEd among other roles. These two TechMates are also leading blockchain operations at the Ngong Road Blockchain Lab. 

All current TechMates have goals that they have set for themselves for this year. Some of the goals include becoming more skilled in software development, securing more clients, taking additional online courses, applying for masters scholarships, taking software engineering scholarship courses at ALX Africa and many more aspirations. We received computer donations from the Safaricom Foundation which will be very useful as we plan on supporting over 15 new beneficiaries this year. TechMates are making use of them and we are grateful for Safaricom’s donation, which will help students transform their lives. The program is progressing and will be restructured to meet market and client needs. The company is now considering adding more employment programs to help students and alumni succeed and transform their lives.

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Esther’s Story

Esher joined NRCF in 2008. She lived with her mum who worked several jobs to earn a living. Life was difficult as her mother could barely afford three meals a day and paying bills became more challenging each month. Luckily, her mum heard of NRFC from their village friends and quickly grabbed the opportunity to have Esther join the program. 

She was able to get a sponsor, Meg Tyler and  was transferred to City Prime Academy and joined class 5, then Jagiet Academy and finally GSU Primary School boarding where she sat for her Kenya Certificate of Primary Education. 

She then joined St. Mary’s Girl High School where she did her Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education before joining University of Nairobi to pursue a Diploma in Human Resource Management. Esther graduated in 2018 attaining an average score.

Esther took initiative and began grabbing employment opportunities presented by the newly established Alumni department, employment division which included training for job preparedness and joining the employability mentorship program. This changed her way of thinking  and she began looking at situations from different perspectives, this encouraged her to become more positive minded, goal oriented and most importantly  realistic with who she was and what she wanted to accomplish in her life. 

After going through the mentorship for two months she was able to get an invitation for a HR Assistant job interview and passed with flying colors. She will now be able to improve hers and her dependants living standards. 

She is truly grateful for NRCF and Meg Tyler, her sponsor. As NRCF we wish her all the best as she moves forward in her career as a HR professional.

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The Elephant Girl Book Club

Appreciating our cultural diversity! What a way to kick-start NRCF book club 2023. The objective is to cultivate a reading culture among young boys and girls. The first book is “The Elephant Girl” a story of Jama – a young Maasai girl who befriended a Baby elephant.)

The Book club was launched on Saturday 28th, January 2023. A second session was on held Monday 30th. Going forward sessions will be held on Saturdays and weekdays during school breaks.
Growing up as a young Masaai Indigenous girl, Tunda (Primary department Senior Case Manager) shared her story with the girls. The girls listened to her story with great fascination as she talked about her childhood growing up in the countryside. They were eager to learn more from the book.


We started with only three girls and since we only had one copy of the book. We are applying the read-aloud and around method for the sessions. This way everyone gets to read two chapters before the other.
Since all the girls were born in the city and none of them is Maasai, Tunda thought of sharing a little bit of her culture with them during the second session. She thus adorn them with the Maasai regalia for the session, and then they took pictures at the end of the session. It was an exciting experience for the young girls. They got a feeling of how Jama described her appearance during the community ceremony/occasion she attended with her mother and her Kokoo (Grandmother). The pioneer girls are:- Dorcas Atieno (from the Luo community) Esther Chebet (from the Kalenjin community and Getrude Ndunge (from the Kamba community)

This was also a way to help us appreciate the beauty found in our cultural diversity.
One of the photos is a picture of Tunda showing them a photo of a “sandgrouse” as one of the girls asked what type of animal it was. Four girls and five boys want to join the book club. They’ll be part of upcoming sessions, expanding the club’s members.