Friends of Ngong Road

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

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Entrepreneurship Training

The organization considers students’ lives to be fully transformed after they complete their studies and are able to secure employment, either as employees or if they decide to venture into self-employment. For this reason, the Entrepreneurship Training Program was started. This program is intended to equip the graduates with the much-needed information in regards to becoming an entrepreneur or small business owner and to connect them with potential investors who could possibly fund their business ideas. 

The training is being conducted by Garden of Hope Foundation, a non-government organization that works with youths and women to offer various training programs, entrepreneurship programs being one of them. Ngong Road Children’s Foundation (NRCF) has 11 graduates attending this program. This training is funded by a grant from the Arrow Foundation.

Including both theoretical content and fieldwork, the program participants are expected to go out and gather information when needed. The training takes place three times a week from morning to midday. Breakfast, lunch, and transport are provided to the participants during the training. This is done to ensure that they attend all training sessions.

Each participant developed an initial business pitch so that the program instructors have an idea of the businesses that the trainees have in mind.  Some of the business ideas that were pitched include water refilling, making products from leather, IT-related business, tent hiring for events, content creation, and digital marketing, among others. The program runs through the 22nd of July, During the training, the trainees will be learning the different dynamics of entrepreneurship as well as implementation. After the training program, they will be able to pitch their final business ideas. The best four trainees with top business pitches will get a financial reward from NRCF and the Garden of Hope Foundation.

NRCF is optimistic that the trainees will successfully complete the event. And, that they will have gained the necessary skills and knowledge to become entrepreneurs and/or start their own business. This will be a big step towards them completely transforming their lives and being able to support themselves.

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Elimu Hub is open!

Elimu Hub opened on May 18. 

The Ngong Road Children’s Foundation site, which is close to Nairobi’s administrative building, is home to Elimu Hub, which is the hub for educational activities, resources, and community. In Swahili, the word “Elimu” means education.

It is enclosed by a secure wall that gives students a sense of security and protection in a volatile and occasionally violent environment. Our updated computer lab and larger library are located at Elimu Hub.
The library is an important resource center for our students as most of them are in school. Besides the books we have acquired through the years, Braeburn School donated more books that will be beneficial to our students. With this gift, we now have more books for our growing community. All this will help us to ensure that our students achieve their academic goals.

The computer lab will be helpful for our students as a tool in their education. Primary-age students from Nelson Mandela Academy take computer classes at the computer lab during the week.  Students from other primary schools take classes on Saturdays before they attend the Saturday Program.  Recent High School graduates will take their Computer classes at the computer lab taught by Belmont College. Course graduates receive a certificate, making them marketable in the job market.

We have never before had a purpose-built structure. The new Elimu Hub, constructed using six 20-foot shipping containers, is a fun and practical structure that benefits both personnel and pupils. Its completion was eagerly awaited, ensuring a positive impact on the community.

Our launch ceremony had representatives from the organizations who made Elimu Hub possible. Representatives from the Rotary Club of Kikuyu, Braeburn School, and Container 254 attended. Rotary Club of South Minneapolis Evenings and Friends of Ngong Road recognized, despite not present. The event consisted of performances from our students who presented poems and dances. We even had a taekwondo performance. 

Kelvin Thuku, our program manager, appreciated the growth of Elimu Hub, from the idea to the implementation stage and finally its unveiling. He regards it as one of the biggest achievements of the organization. He also expressed his gratitude to the collaborators for their assistance with the project’s construction and completion.

The president of the Rotary Club of Kikuyu, Ann Ichung’wa, officially launched the Elimu Hub making it ready for use by our students.

We extend our utmost gratitude to our partner organizations and all of you that contributed to our Elimu Hub campaign This project would never have happened without your support. Thank you for helping us in the process of transforming the lives of our students.   

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Parents/Guardian Involvement

Parents/guardians play an important role in the transformation of a student. It is our policy that each student has a supportive parent/guardian during the child’s enrollment in the organization.

During the student selection period, the parent/guardian must fulfill several requirements. In general, they have to ensure that they provide basic needs for the children. They sign a contract agreeing to play their part in the child’s life and to support the organization in any way possible for the child’s success. The parent/guardian refreshes the contract at each level of the student’s education.

Every week, the organization holds a Saturday Program where we meet with the students and engage them in group activities. The parents/guardians must ensure that the students attend and participate. The parents/guardians also provide the organization with periodic assessment information to assess the child’s progress both at home and at school. This is a way of providing feedback to the organization on how to best support the student.

“We host an Annual General Meeting, and we expect the parents/guardians to attend.” They receive updates on the program, review their commitment to their child’s education, and are asked for their support in identifying prospective students for the program. They usually hold it at the end of the year and distribute Christmas packages of food aid to their families.

We highly appreciate all our parents/guardians for their continued effort in helping us achieve our students’ success. Their involvement contributes to the success of the students through the web of supportive adults in their lives – parents/guardians, case managers, teachers, and sponsors.

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Employment Initiatives

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.  

The 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 the 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 revised 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 schools, 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 the 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 business’s operations, learning organization skills, time management, and working as part of a team. Karibu Loo has also hired graduates for full-time roles in marketing and operations.  Since its 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 join 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.

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Two Remarkable Young People:

Siblings Lorine and Emmanuel

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 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 young 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 for a 4 year Bachelor’s degree in Business Studies and now works in a financial position at the 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 countries. They indeed 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 from 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 the age of 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, when young, 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 in matters concerning information technology.

What does my future look like? 

I could describe my future from the lens of an optimist. One that is promising and demanding as well. I view myself as growing even better. This could be by adding more academic qualifications to my portfolio and having reliable years of experience in the business information, and technology arena and 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 thus 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