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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Karibu Loo is Expanding!

The KL business in Nairobi is expanding and these are the updates regarding its status.

Karibu Loo Will be Fully Launched in 2016

We have placed an order that will begin the expanding portable toilet business in Nairobi.  In early 2016, we will fully launch the business by adding a pick-up truck, a VIP toilet, and another 40 cabins, along with hand-washing stations in response to our key learnings during the 2015 pilot.

Financial results

During the pilot project, we were able to break even because all of the capital was donated.  We are actively soliciting financial support to pay for the cost of the equipment that will allow us to expand.  Those efforts will continue in 2016.  If we are able to secure donations to cover our capital needs we will be able to begin making financial contributions to Ngong Road Children’s Foundation’s operating budget next year.

Employment

In 2015, we exceeded our goals for the employment of our graduates.  To date, 24 graduates have worked as Associates at events, learning important employment skills.  In addition, we have hired three graduates to assist with operations, administration, and accounting.  As we grow these results should continue.

Looking ahead

Michael Switzer will continue as our volunteer general manager in Nairobi until June 2016.  We expect to hire his successor in March and to continue to build the team and infrastructure that will allow this business to build on the successes of 2015.

To read the original story, please click here

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FONR Camp Experience – Kenney and Updates

First, a big thank you to all of you who provided economic support for the 2015 Friends of Ngong Road Camp.  As a result of your support Camp 2015 offered more opportunities, more experiences, more learning, and more fun than ever before.  2016 will be another great experience!  Read on to see how you can become a part of it.

Tulane University Partnership Approved!

New this year at the camp were classes and activities taught by Sally J. Kenney, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Newcomb College Institute (NCI) of Tulane University in New Orleans.  The mission of the Institute is to educate undergraduate women about leadership in the 21st century.  Kenney, who sponsors three children with Friends of Ngong Road and has been to Kenya twice, was eager to engage her students globally and curious as to whether younger students in the developing world would find value in NCI’s gender and leadership model.

In 2015, Kenney and NCI’s Senior Program Coordinator, Mailliron Hodge, taught leadership and gender sessions at Leadership Camp, Senior Camp, and Grammar Camp.  They brought with them a wonderful film on Wangari Mathai.

Both the boys and the girls enjoyed the activities and the lessons resonated.  Kenney and Hodge were inundated with campers who wanted to know more about how to learn and enjoyed participating in all of the activities.

Because Kenya is still on the State Department’s Watch List, we all anxiously awaited the outcome of the request to approve a credit course at Tulane for 2016.  Happily, Tulane approved.  Twenty students are enrolled in the preparatory course, taught by Gwen Thompkins, former East African correspondent for NPR.

Kenney and Hodge hope to bring at least five student volunteers to camp.  We hope that Tulane students will broaden the camp curriculum, teach study skills, and mentor our students.  Kenney reported that participating in camp was the most rewarding teaching experience of her life, but she felt saddened to realize that, at age 56, she can no longer truly jump rope.

Camp 2015 Report:

This year, 297 students and 32 volunteers, many of whom were NRCF post-secondary students, actively participated in the camp.

Ali Kildahl

Leadership Camp: 

Forty Ngong Road Children’s Foundation students were accepted as counselors for this year’s camp.  They displayed remarkable leadership
skills as they worked their way through the three-day curriculum including teaching the principles of effective leadership.

This interactive learning experience is focused upon a deepened understanding of good leadership characteristics, practicing leadership skills, understanding the responsibilities and tasks of being a camp counselor, and introducing the idea of using and working with emotional leadership.

The counselors also developed solutions to camp issues (such as cellphone use) and implemented them during Camp 2015.  The interactive learning sessions were favorites. A volunteer in the NRCF Post-Secondary program expressed their fourth opportunity to participate in Leadership Camp.  I have learned a lot at each of them, but this year was the best yet, I learned so much!”

Malliron Hodge

Grammar Camp:

112 campers attended Grammar Camp 2015, which took place outside of Nairobi at the St. Francis Xavier School, just like the Leadership and Senior camps.

 It was the first time we have held Grammar Camp in a rural area, and the kids loved the fresh air, especially the boat ride on Lake Naivasha.    They also enjoyed the many “crazy games” and relays at camp.  However, my favorite activity in both Grammar and Senior Camp was the making of tie-dye T-shirts.  This complicated art project was the brainchild of Margaret Pfeffer who attended her fifth camp as Art Director.  Her amazing talents resulted in over 300 camper-dyed T-shirts with nary a mishap!

Kids Camp:

Seventeen of our youngest students attended Kids Camp this year.  We conducted this one-day excursion at a wonderful amusement park in Nairobi.  The kids loved the games and especially the rides!

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Post-Secondary Program Comes Into Focus

Friends of Ngong Road’s board of directors decided in 2008 that we aspire to “go deep” with the students we sponsor.  This principle led to the decision to continue with students through post-secondary training despite the increased expense.  We aspire to assist these young adults until they are ready to secure jobs in Kenya’s growing economy.

87 Students now in a post-secondary program

Our first high school graduating class was just five students in 2012, all of whom are now employed.  Since then, we have had 87 more students finish high school, with the largest class being the class of 2015 with 38 students.  We have learned a great deal as we have shaped this extension to our core program focused on primary and secondary education.

Three principles

We developed three principles to guide the post-secondary program:

1.     Formal acceptance:  We require that students formally acknowledge they plan to join the post-secondary program and understand their responsibilities, including attending computer skills training, obtaining a national identification card, and developing a proposal for their own post-secondary education by June of the year following graduation.

2.     Support based on academic achievement: Most students will qualify for a one-two year program that focuses on job skills training.  Only those who qualify for government scholarships will be given the opportunity to attend university, although exceptions may be granted from time to time.

3.     Realistic expectations: We have tight guidelines about the duration and cost of the courses and try to focus students on career paths likely to lead to jobs.

Differing rates of maturation

As is true in the U.S., young people mature at different tempos though most experience a great deal of growth and development from ages 18 through 22.  We have seen this in Kenya as our students move from unrealistic aspirations to reality-based plans.  Assisting them with that process requires a great deal of time, wisdom, and expertise.

New caseworker hired

In 2014, we hired Joy Obiya as our post-secondary caseworker.  Joy is the person who provides this coaching and guidance.  Imagine if every year you needed to help up to 40 young people decide on their career path!  Joy is courageous, honest, and very effective at providing guidance while still leaving the primary responsibility to the young person.

Promising results

  • The class of 2012 includes four students who have finished their post-secondary education and all are employed in good jobs.
  • Marline, the fifth student, enrolled in university and is working part-time.
  • The class of 2013 was 12 students, two of whom elected not to pursue post-secondary education.  Of the remaining 10, two have finished their post-secondary program and are doing an internship.  Six have part-time work and are going to school.  The remaining two are in school full-time.
  • The class of 2014 was 37 students.  Most have either started their post-secondary coursework or will do so in January.  Two students from this class had babies in the intervening year and we are still sorting out our approach to these two students.  Many of our students will complete their post-secondary coursework in 2016 or 2017 and we will support their efforts to get jobs.

It is especially exciting to begin to see the results of this program in lives transformed by work.  To see more, please watch this short video: “I’m Working, It’s Working”.

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Letter from Peter – December 2015

August 2015 Camp

In August we had our annual camp. This is the time we concentrate on letter writing to the sponsors and also making sure that children learn about leadership skills, interactive games, and hiking, among other things.

Tom has always attended Camp every year since its inception and through his leadership skills we have always learned a lot. This time we were able to work on Salesforce.com before camp started in order to make sure that it remains our managing tool for our work in Kenya. Some of the things that Tom helped on Salesforce are home visits reports, school visit reports, and letter reports as well as making sure that it is a tool that we can use on the ground to manage the work better in the future.

This year we went hiking around Mt. Longonot as well as boat riding where children were able to see hippopotami at Lake Naivasha. It was a wonderful time being with the children and we got to understand them even better.

Visit of Karen and Susan

Karen and Susan who are on the U.S. Board of directors visited us from 29th November to 5th December. Apart from bringing greetings from the U.S., we got to learn a lot. We covered a lot of mileage in post-secondary issues like making sure we are on track with the new graduates on how we will make sure that they get enrolled in colleges on time. We were also able to review the scholarship committee guidelines.

Karen was also very involved with the library and she gave us very good ideas on fundraising which we will implement come the year 2016. She worked a lot with our librarian, Norah, in making sure that the library is working and maintained for the benefit of the children. All in all, I would like to give my gratitude for their visit. Every time we have a visitor from the U.S. we feel blessed because we get to learn a lot.

Karibu Loo ltd.

I am very happy to report that 24 students from our program are now benefitting from part-time jobs from Karibu Loo. Apart from working for pay they also learn about timekeeping in employment, interaction with customers as they narrate their stories as well as being in a working environment. We are happy with Karibu Loo because all the income are to benefit NRCF in its mission.

Harrambe/Graduation.

Every year we normally hold a local fundraiser (Harambee). This year it took place on 5th December and Karen and Susan were able to attend just before they left for the U.S.A. We managed to get food donation of 744 packets of maize flour from Kimfay, a company in Kenya who have been very supportive of our program, and 248 containers of shortening from Bimeda ( from our volunteer, Chris Adams) who are also a strong supporter of our mission and 100 food packages from Braeburn School where Leah Switzer (wife of our Karibu Loo General Manager, Michael Switzer) works. In total, we managed to raise Ksh. 344,000 both in cash and in-kind donations.

Peter Ndungu
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

peter