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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Letter from Nairobi: All Smiles

ALL SMILES FOR NGONG ROAD CHILDREN AND THEIR FAMILIES. The year 2017 started with a bang at Ngong Road Children’s Foundation (NRCF). A total of 260 families and their children received a New Year’s present of food packs from our supporters comprising a full chicken, 4kgs of maize flour, 1 kg of sugar, 1 kg of rice,1 kg of beans, and 1 kg of cooking fat. The package is so appreciated since the majority of the parents are manual laborers who earn below a dollar a day. It was all smiles for the children and their families since they were going to have a meal that most had not enjoyed for a long time. One woman was heard saying, “I am very grateful to Ngong Road Children’s Foundation since I am going to have chicken with my family, a delicacy I have not had for the past two years.”

The event was special since it brought together all the families, the NRCF Board of Directors, NRCF staff, BIMEDA Managers, and Chris Adams, one of our top Kenya sponsors and donors. We are very grateful to BIMEDA and Kenchic who jointly donated 260 chickens, NRCF and Karibu Loo Limited (KLL) Board Chairs Rajpreet and Raj Bains who jointly donated maize flour, Chris Adams, Langata West Primary School, Jonathan Njeru and Ben Waweru who jointly donated sugar, rice, beans and cooking fat. Without our supporters, the day will not have been a possibility.

Plans for Improving School Relationships
Some supporters do not realize that we do not run our own schools, Rather we’ve found it more beneficial to partner with schools in the local area that show good student outcomes.

One of our goals for 2017 is to improve the relationship with the schools we are working with to enable close monitoring of our student’s performance and ultimate improvement in grades. We are planning to achieve this through:

  • Monitoring and evaluating students’ performance throughout the year and recommending whether it’s advisable to admit new students to that school.
  • Visiting existing well-performing schools to strengthen the relationship.
  • Identifying and building new relationships with other institutions that perform well.
  • Working hand in hand with the school administration of our focus schools when called upon and during school visits to address any issues and also motivate students as they progress in their studies.

In our effort to improve secondary students’ performance and break the poverty cycle, we are planning to take them through study skills training using the expertise of our NRCF Board Member, Robert Murimi. Robert trained the staff and students of a Kenyan school whose performance ranking improved from 87 to 25 in the country in the annual Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination.

Plans for Study Skills Training
We plan to train our primary and high school children on effective study skills. The training entails: wise time management, good listening skills, being well organized, class attendance, use of study groups, taking short notes, setting and achieving goals, effective writing skills, approaching studies with the right attitude, choosing the right environment, minimizing destruction and setting realistic schedules.

Our plan is that the training should commence in March for the primary school children and our caseworkers, and then for high school children in April. Our long-term plan is to incorporate skills training in the August camp and has regular mentorship sessions throughout the year. It is our hope that our children’s final grades will improve after the training.

All of this work is possible because of the hundreds of individuals, organizations, and companies across the world who believe in children and are making a difference.

Sincerely,
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Maureen Mulievi
Programme Director
Ngong Road Children’s Foundation

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Dr. Sally Kenney joins Friends of Ngong Road Board of Directors

Friends of Ngong Road has added an educator to its board of directors. A native of Iowa, Sally J. Kenney earned a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Iowa, a B.A. and M.A. in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics from Magdalen College, Oxford, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University.  From 1989-1995, she held a joint appointment in Political Science, Women’s Studies, and Law at the University of Iowa.

  She served on the faculty at the University of Minnesota’s Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs from 1995-2009 where she also directed the Center on Women and Public Policy. She joined Tulane University in 2010 as the first Newcomb College Endowed Chair, the executive director of the Newcomb College Institute, and a Professor of Political Science.  The Newcomb College Institute is an interdisciplinary, academic center whose mission is to educate undergraduate women about leadership.  In that role, she pioneered a service learning summer program to bring Tulane students to NRCF’s annual camp.  Last year, she led three students.

Sally’s research interests include gender and judging, judicial selection, feminist social movements, women and electoral politics, the European Court of Justice, exclusionary employment policies, and pregnancy discrimination. Her latest book is Gender and Justice: Why Women in the Judiciary Really Matter (2013).  She has close relationships with the Kenyan Women’s Judges Association.  Her current research focuses on sexual assault on campus and women’s leadership.  She also studies Swahili.

Sally has been to Kenya four times, first in 2011, as a sponsor of Sharon. In the intervening years, she sponsored three children and met NRCF students through camp participation in 2015 and 2016. Sally and her husband Norman Foster have no children of their own.  Sally met Emmanuel Jal, a former child warrior who runs a program for Sudanese orphans in Kenya last summer. Jal believes that Sudan has a proverb that whoever takes in an orphan will never feel lonely in old age. Sally feels fortunate to be involved in this project, which now has 400 children, she feels like they are her own

In the Illumini Podcast, Steve Kotvis interviews Sally about how volunteers bring their unique talents to Friends of Ngong Road and Ngong Road Children’s Foundation. Sally explores sponsor connections’ value in Ngong Road Children’s Foundation program, highlighting insightful findings.

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Volunteers at Camp 2017

Have you ever considered traveling to Kenya? Do you enjoy working with kids? Were you ever a camper? Volunteers at camp are needed.

Each year, volunteers from both the U.S. and Kenya join us at camp to enrich campers’ experiences. Volunteers participate in daily activities and use their unique skills to teach classes, run new and creative games, and share life experiences with the kids. There is plenty of room for creativity and fun.

This year, Emily Gleason and Turner Cobden are offering a $1,000 partial travel grant for camp. The grant will be awarded to the candidate they believe will best contribute to the holiday camp and to the mission of the charity. Apply by April 7 to be considered. We invite you to learn more about camp and the travel grant online or by contacting Tom Gleason at tom@ngongroad.org.

Camp 2017 runs from August 12 to August 25 in a beautiful, rural part of Kenya near Mt. Kenya. The location provides students with a once-a-year chance to escape the busy, noisy city. It is the student’s favorite part of being in the program, and you could be a part of it!

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Notes from Paula- NRCF Changes

Talented people are the heart of any organization and until this year, Friends of Ngong Road relied almost entirely on the talents of volunteers to handle our work. By the end of 2015, our board concluded we have simply grown to the point that our all-volunteer model had run its course, so we have begun to add paid staff who help with some very important jobs.

Lacey Kraft began working as the Director of Development in January 2016 – our first full-time employee. Although her focus is on development, Lacey has contributed to many projects from updating the website to the newsletter to sponsor renewals. Lacey most recently served in a similar capacity for a domestic abuse shelter in Grand Forks, ND. During her undergraduate years at the University of Minnesota, she spent a semester studying in Kenya where she first became acquainted with Ngong Road Children’s Foundation. Lacey has brought great energy and expertise to the organization and we are thankful for her contributions.

We are also deeply grateful to Jil Bakko. Jil has worked part-time for several years on Friends of Ngong Road’s accounting and audit preparation. She reconciles our accounts, prepares for our annual audit, and ensures our U.S. financials are accurate.

In 2016 we made big changes at Ngong Road Children’s Foundation (NRCF) in Kenya. Our new board chair is Rajpreet Bains. Rajpreet is a human resources professional, having worked for several corporations both in London and Nairobi. She has her own Human Resources consultancy in Nairobi focused on organizational development. Rajpreet has helped fortify governance in Kenya, recruiting new board members, articulating priorities, and ensuring a much more active role for the board of directors of NRCF. Rajpreet and her colleagues are still filling out their board; when they have a full slate we will provide a profile of each of them.

Maureen Mulievi
Maureen Mulievi, Program Director

Finally, our new Program Director in Kenya named Maureen Mulievi joined NRCF in August. Maureen has brought a level of professionalism and experience in non-profit organization leadership that we have all appreciated. Before joining NRCF, Maureen was program director for a Planned Parenthood Global project that worked with women in several counties near Nairobi. She is in her mid-30s with two small children; her husband is a high school teacher.

Our organizations have already begun to benefit from the expertise and contributions of the people introduced here, both in the U.S. and Kenya.

Thanks for your ongoing support.

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Paula Meyer
President, Friends of Ngong Road

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Letter from Nairobi

Dear Friends,

We here in Nairobi take this opportunity to thank all the Friends of Ngong Road, our donors both known and anonymous, our supporters and partners. You cannot imagine the difference you are making in the children’s lives. Through your generous support, we currently have 114 children in primary school, 146 in secondary school, 94 in various Kenyan universities and colleges, and 37 alumni adding to a total of 391 children. It is our hope that through your support, and the support of your friends and other well-wishers, we will be able to increase the number of children sponsored by 30 or more by the end of 2017 as there are still many more vulnerable children out there who need your support.

Holidays in Kenya

Currently, the primary and secondary (Form One to Form Three/Ninth through Eleventh grade) children are on a long holiday that will end on 3rd January 2017 as schools resume on 4th January. During these long holidays, children are very happy to receive breakfast and lunch which they would not have gotten were it not for your generous contribution to NRCF. Since the holiday period is long, we have modified the Saturday Program so that the children can engage to fully exploit and realize their talents effectively. The Saturday Program is divided into four broad categories that are geared towards the complete development of the children, namely;

  1. Psychosocial health improvement: Yoga, cheers, singing and fun, brain games, talent contests, team building and spirit, and health check
  2. Cognitive development:  Arts and crafts, book reading, debates and presentations, crosswords, puzzles, and acrostic poems
  3. Social development: Participating in various clubs and societies e.g. drama and music, scouts, dance club, journalism and arts, St. John ambulance, and STEM (Science, technology, economics, and maths)
  4. Physical development:  Soccer, Katie, taekwondo, rugby, volleyball, handball, and athletics 

The children also enjoy a well-balanced lunch that is part of the nutrition program. After lunch the children go for breakout sessions; they are normally divided into two groups (girls and boys) and further by the primary and high school where group mentorship takes place on issues of reproductive health, personal hygiene, and how to overcome peer pressure, among others. The children really enjoy these sessions.

Testing season

Class Eight students have finished the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) exam and the Form Four students (12th grade) are sitting for their final exams, the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE),  which they will finish by the end of November. We are expecting good grades from both the Class Eight and Form Four candidates that are currently sitting for their final exams.

August camp

This year from the 9th to the 22nd of August we had three exciting and successful camps held at St. Francis Xavier Girls School in Naivasha (i.e. Grammar Camp, Senior Camp, and Leadership Camp). We also had Little Kids Camp at Destiny Gardens, Rock City, Kiambu (an amusement park that has a swimming pool and beautiful gardens). We had 98% attendance of children in all four camps. Children interacted with each other and with visiting guests including the NRCF board chair and NRCF staff. The children had lots of fun through competitive sports and games, arts and crafts, career development sessions, swimming, a visit to the lake, boat riding, and hiking. They also had an opportunity to eat three balanced meals per day throughout camp. Thanks to the camp founder, Tom Gleason, and all the other sponsors who made this happen. We also appreciate Tulane University for its great support during camp.

Thank you all for making a big difference in the lives of these little ones and we believe that they will go to great heights.

Sincerely,
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Maureen Mulievi
Programme Director
Ngong Road Children’s Foundation