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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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.

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The successful journey of Roseann

Roseann joined Ngong Road Children’s Foundation (NRCF) in 2007 as one of the beneficiaries for the education program from primary school, through Secondary School to University. Her education journey was made successful through the financial support of her sponsor Steve Lewis.

Roseann completed her primary school education in 2012 scoring excellently, at GSU primary school. This earned her a spot in Nembu Girls High School, one of the best secondary schools in Nairobi where she also performed excellently and transited to Maseno University to study a Bachelor’s Degree in Geospatial Information Science with IT, a course girls have always shied from. 

She however took it as a challenge and graduated in 2022 with a second Class Upper.

Roseann has held several leadership positions in her education journey beginning as a squad leader at Ngong Road Children’s Foundation, a Deputy School Captain, football Captain and Captain of students Campaign Against Drugs  at her high school. In Maseno University, she was a class representative.

She began her career at Kenya National Highways Authority, KeNHA, and later joined Digireg Kenya as a data operator in Kisumu County where she currently works. In her spare time, Roseann volunteers as an Environmental Champion and participates in  the UN-HABITAT- COVID-19 mitigation activities. Roseann also organizes a charity program at St Mary Magdalene Oasis of Peace Children’s Home in Kisumu County and a Street feeding program for street Children.

We wish Roseann a successful career journey.

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2023 Alumni Camp

The Alumni Camp was held from Friday, 20th January 2023 To Sunday, 22nd January 2023 at the Duara Flamingo Camp, located in Elementaita, Nakuru (Lake Elementaita Lodge). The camp was intended to celebrate the accomplishments of the 2022 post-secondary graduates and welcome them to the alumni association as well as have their first Job preparedness training.

We had a total of 36 campers that included 31 alumni, 3 staff members and 2 facilitators from the organization. The alumni slept in tents and their meals were prepared by the hotel chefs. We had a number of activities and training that were meant to develop their employability skills as well as their emotional intelligence. There was a training session that was conducted by Be The Leader (BTL) on job interview skills, digital marketing, entrepreneurship skills and career development. The objective of the training was to teach them how to be outstanding during an interview, how to make them visible to employers via social media and the basics of starting a business.

There were also lots of team competition activities like crazy games and Olympics. The alumni got a chance to visit the Kariandusi prehistoric site and African Diatomite Industries Ltd. They learnt about the mining of diatomite (from skeletons of very tiny animals called diatoms) and its uses.

The camp was a success and we hope that the alumni got impacted positively from all the training and activities. We hope that they use the skills gained to better equip themselves for the employment and self-employment sectors.