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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Upgrades to the Sponsor Portal

Photos of Your Student

For a long time, we’ve struggled to efficiently share student photos. We were able to print and send portraits to sponsors, but we had no means of sharing the thousands of photos we have of students from school, camp, Saturday Program, and everyday life.

We are excited to have launched a new photo management system that allows students to tag themselves in photos, quickly linking them to you in the portal. This gives sponsors a more timely glimpse into the transformation of their student’s life. 

To see photos of your student, simply click the “photos” tab on your portal dashboard and click on a photo to enlarge it.  Use the arrows within the picture to scroll through additional pictures.  A picture is worth a thousand words!     

Communicating with Your Student

The portal is the best way to communicate with your student. The “inbox” tab allows you to easily send and receive messages. We’ve recently added video capabilities. This allows you and your student to use your phone or computer’s webcam to send short videos to each other. Students love to see videos of their sponsors. 

Students receive messages and videos through the portal much sooner than handwritten letters. Easily connect with your student anytime, sending a thoughtful “I’ve been thinking about you” message, simplifying your communication.

More Enhancements 

We will continue to make portal improvements to increase communication and provide useful information understanding.   We are going to add tips on communicating with your student, FAQs, program overviews, and more. We’re also planning educational programs where sponsors will be able to get together, learn more about Kenya, our programs, and network with each other. 

If you have ideas for new features, let us know.  If you haven’t been on the portal recently, log back on to see the changes and know that more is to come.

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Saturday Development Program

Each Saturday we host a child development program with the help of our Case Managers. The program consists of fun activities surrounding a wholesome fresh lunch prepared and served by our cooks. A nurse is on hand to distribute multivitamins and deworming pills regularly and meets with individual children who are ill, referring them to clinics or prescribing treatment as appropriate. The nurse also gives health talks to different age groups.  The Saturday Program Coordinator organizes activities geared towards cognitive development and social and physical development. We invite volunteers to support running the activities as well as bring in new ideas. The activities rotate between the following themes;

  • Cognitive activities include a book reading and puzzle games
  • Olympic athletics which is all about running (which Kenyans are famous for)
  • Clubs and talent search including drama, music, and Taekwondo
  • Ball games such as  soccer and Katie (dodgeball)
  • Crazy Olympics. This includes crazy games such as the banana foot pass relay, balloon relay, three-legged relay, and sack relay.

In 2020, we put the  Saturday program on hold due to  COVID-19. This dealt a big blow to our students as the Saturday program is a good opportunity for kids to build memories, friendship, and sportsmanship, and enjoy a “sumptuous” meal together. We resumed the program in May of 2021 but, despite all the hype, the attendance was very low as most parents and guardians were very cautious about releasing their children due to COVID-19 fears. It was equally challenging for the program coordinators to try to organize activities with less contact and ensure kids observed the Ministry of Health guidelines such as wearing masks. However, as time passed more students attended the program and in this last quarter of the year, we reached over 90% attendance. During the holiday break, we also had a very high attendance of high school students which means we will need a bigger and better field next year. 

The August summer camp was also canceled due to Covid-19 and with the change in the school calendar, the Saturday program has now become the new “mini-camp”. The Saturday program has defined the true meaning of the NRCF family as the staff and students come together to share joy and happiness with each other and forget about the hustle and bustle of the slums and city. It is also during the Saturday program that the Case Managers get to do further follow-up on the child’s wellbeing.

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Help Transform Lives – Contribute to Our Annual Appeal!

The students we serve face more challenges than most of us can imagine. They learn early on that to survive they must embrace resilience, facing their challenges with hope, drive, passion, courage, and kindness.

We are grateful to all our sponsors who make classroom education possible for individual students.  Sponsorships cover the costs of school fees and uniforms, but Friends of Ngong Road also provides unique program support to empower students to succeed and transform their lives. These include our Life Skills Program, career counseling, employment support, basic medical care, the Saturday Program, computer certification, case managers, etc.  Our Annual Appeal directly supports these initiatives. 

Thank you to the many friends who have already donated to our annual appeal.  We are making great progress but still need additional supporters to achieve our goal of raising $170,000 by year-end. 

Your support will be DOUBLED thanks to the $85,000 matching gift from the Ted and Kathy Truscott Family Foundation.  

It’s not too late!  Help us transform lives.

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Letter from Nairobi

Hello Friends of Ngong Road,

The last quarter of this year has been a busy time for staff in Nairobi as they reflect on the year’s achievements as well as the following year’s plan. We note that there is much to celebrate, from moving to a new office to students resuming school after the 2020 COVID-19 school shutdown. It has been more than just surviving. It meant embracing resilience and dealing with the challenges posed by the pandemic. 

Compressed school calendar leads to unrest

The last quarter was the second term for students in primary and high school. This is due to the change in the school calendar and the introduction of a 4th term to make up for the lost year in 2020. This meant that students would stay longer in school with minimal school breaks. It also meant a high focus on academics and fewer extracurricular activities. However, this did not augur well with the students. During the second term, Kenya witnessed a high rate of student unrest characterized by strikes and arson in schools. More than 31 learning institutions were burnt down this term alone.  

Four of our partner schools were affected; Loise Nanyuki (2 students attending), Kiriathiani school (1 student), Karima boys (2 students), and Makwa boys (13 students). The students have since resumed school but had to pay a fee to rebuild the damaged dormitories. Due to the unrest, the government had to send all students for a midterm break in November as students attributed the unrest to the fact that there was no school break in the term. Our staff continued to guide and counsel students especially during school visits in order for them to remain focused on their studies. 

Kenya is still struggling with COVID-19

We conducted a second home assessment of our families where we learned that 86% of the households had someone working compared to 95% in July, while 14% had no one working compared to 5% in July 2021. 76% of the households had an income decrease compared to 57% in July, while 5% had an income increase compared to 10% in July. 

The country has made extensive efforts to bring down the positivity rate as well as increase vaccine uptake. As of November, 9% of the adult population had been vaccinated with a target of 10% by the end of the year.  At NRCF, all staff has been fully vaccinated.  

We look forward to another successful year with you, our supporters.

Best to all of you this holiday season,

Kelvin Thuku

Program Manager

Ngong Road Children Foundation