Acknowledgement Archives - Friends of Ngong Road

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.

Improving the donation experience

Our US team has been hard at work rebuilding the system we use to track your donations. When Friends of Ngong Road was founded 16 years ago, most of our supporters mailed checks to our founding board members, and then to our PO Box.

Eventually, our team managed to initiate sponsorship donations via automatic credit card withdrawals. However, we still manually tracked, responded to, and handled each donation. This resulted in a significant time investment from our US team for basic data input, sometimes resulting in human errors.

Over the years as we have grown and added more students, created a more robust program, and as inflation and other costs have increased, the amount of time our staff has spent manually typing your donations into our system has increased.

We realized that this model was no longer sustainable, and our US team went to work to build a system that would support automated donation tracking. There were 16 years of donations to comb through, sort, and organize, then we rebuilt our existing system to support automation, and finally, in the past few weeks, we have been able to launch the newly built automation to our website. You likely won’t notice a difference quite yet (there are big improvements coming your way soon!) in the way you make donations on our website, but behind the scenes your donations now flow directly into our system, allowing our US staff to use their time in more meaningful and impactful ways.

In the upcoming year, we aim to introduce an account management system for donors via the sponsor portal. This system will enable sponsors to log in, efficiently handle their sponsorships, modify credit card details, and even include more sponsorships. All the work completed over the past year has made these types of improvements possible

With advancing technology’s accessibility, our organization thrives, expanding to serve an increasing number of students effectively.

We are grateful to have a board that understands the power of technology and is willing to support new ventures to ultimately support the efficiency of the teams both in the US and in Kenya

Notes from Paula – March 2020

Dear friends,

Greetings from a world that has changed. We are all coping as we work to understand what COVID-19 will mean for people across the globe and what the downstream economic harm is likely to be. Like most people, I don’t yet understand the long-term implications however I have already deeply internalized an important lesson: We are all in this together! Viruses do not respect borders, income levels, or political preferences. We all have to pull together to overcome this threat beyond 2020.

In that spirit, Friends of Ngong Road board members Amy Johnson, Keith Kale, and I have been working long days for the past ten days to establish a Crisis Management process for Ngong Road Children’s Foundation (NRCF) and Karibu Loo (KLL) in Kenya and for Friends of Ngong Road (FoNR) in the United States. Teams meet daily in Kenya while the U.S. and global teams confer weekly. We have taken steps to reduce expenses in both organizations with the goal of weathering this storm.

There are several important staff changes you should know about…

Lacey Kraft joined Friends of Ngong Road as our first full-time paid employee in February 2016. Her assignment was to build upon the work volunteers did during Friends of Ngong Road’s first ten years and formalize the organization’s development program. Lacey tackled this assignment with great energy and made significant contributions during her four years with the organization. Sadly, she has decided to leave for another non-profit in the Twin Cities. We are sorry to see Lacey go and wish her all the best in the future.
We have made the difficult decision to eliminate the position of Program Director spanning both NRCF and KLL in Kenya. Maureen Mulievi is the current incumbent in that role and has served the organization well. We are sorry to say goodbye to Maureen and wish her the best in her future endeavors. In this environment, we believe the organization must streamline leadership so we are as effective and efficient as possible.
Kelvin Thuku will assume leadership of NRCF while Emmanuel Mukasa (business development) and Steve Muendo (operations) will co-lead Karibu Loo through the crisis. This move will spearhead the 2020 plans

In all cases, Kenyan staff members will report to Crisis Management teams comprised of people in both countries.

In Kenya, 2020, the immediate and significant need is for food aid. Families in our community faced great food insecurity before this crisis hit. Today, they are also told to stay home and work remotely – except when their work is casual labor such as cleaning homes, doing laundry, or construction, remote work is not possible. And these families don’t eat if they don’t work. We are increasing food aid and appreciate your support in helping us feed these children and their families. For $35/week we can provide enough basics so a family of four can eat at least one meal daily – with 255 families with children in our program, the unplanned-for cost could be as high as $9,000 per month.

If you would like to help us provide food aid in Kenya, please click here. We are all in this together, thank you!

Feiges Lead Life Skills training with Graduates

Meghan and Evan Feige have long known about Friends of Ngong Road (FoNR). They grew up with Meg Meyer, the daughter of president and founder, Paula Meyer. They saw the work of Paula and the board and heard stories of children’s lives being transformed.

Last month, the Feiges took their experience with FoNR a step further. Requesting leave from their full-time jobs at Cargill and Target, they spent some time in Nairobi working with our recent high school graduates. They created and led a variety of workshops including personality styles, mock interviews, personal brand, emotional intelligence, and more. Meghan and Evan Feige stressed the importance of personal exploration through interactive activities, case studies, reflection, and dialogues. Such skills are not usually taught in schools in Kenya, but personal awareness and critical thinking abilities are imperative to students’ post-secondary experiences and their success in future careers.

We surveyed our recent high school graduates after the experience. The majority stated that it was one of the most valuable training sessions they had ever received and enthusiastically suggested conducting workshops for future graduates.

The Feiges enjoy seeking opportunities to learn about new cultures. The couple lived in Mexico City, where Meghan worked for Cargill. They saw poverty and injustice in Mexico and have seen similar inequities in their own community. But what they saw in Kenya was different. They knew the kids. There was trust among the families, who welcomed the Feiges into their homes. The students opened their hearts to welcome and teach them. The FoNR staff helped them better understand. They left the country with hope for the future and a new perspective on life.

Their experience continues to have an impact both in the U.S. and Kenya. Evan has worked with peers at Target to donate cases of professional clothing to our recent graduates who are applying for jobs. Our board and staff are working to ensure similar training workshops happen in the future. And, our high school graduates are more prepared than ever to reach their highest potential.

Thank you, Meghan and Evan, for partnering to transform lives!