Ngong Road Children's Foundation

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

2022 Graduates Life skills and SRH Programs Update

By Sallyanne Atieno

The high school graduates of 2022 were taken through life skills and Sexual Reproductive Health (SRH) trainings from the 20th of February to the 3rd. These are part of the programs developed by the organization to help the students to develop basic social skills as well as to promote their awareness in their personal and physical well-being.

We had 26 out of 28 students attend the programs, which represents a 94% turnout. The purpose of this training was to teach the students general and self-management skills, basic social skills and skills related to career development as they transition to higher learning institutions. 

During the 9 day training period, the students were taken through various topics which included but not limited to; effective communication and listening skills, stress and conflict management, emotional intelligence, CV and cover letter writing, interview preparation and personal branding. At the end of the life skills training, the students were each given a career booklet from which they were to research and prepare to attend a mock job interview for their respective careers. They were required to dress professionally and have their CVs and cover letter ready for the job interview that was being conducted by their Case Managers. This was a great way for them to familiarize themselves with how job interviews are conducted and test their skills in CV and cover letter writing.

The Sexual Reproductive Health training on the other hand was conducted by the NRCF Youth Peer Providers (YPPs) that have been trained and certified by Planned Parenthood. The training was conducted by two YPPs and two staff members were present to oversee the session. The objective of this training was to create more awareness on sexual health matters as well as to make them understand and learn how to deal with the physiology of their bodies.

Some of the topics that were covered include; use of contraceptives, safe sex and consent, Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs), early pregnancy, abortion, and Gender Based Violence (GBV). During both trainings, the students were provided with tea and snacks during the break in between the sessions. Proper hygiene and sanitation protocols were also strictly observed.

Our special gratitude goes to both the US and Kenya teams for the support granted so far. We would also like to thank the Rotary clubs of Kikuyu and Minneapolis for the grant in ensuring the training is conducted. Last but not least, we appreciate the students for taking the time to attend these valuable training sessions. 

TechMates Update

By Sallyanne Atieno

Since the launch of the TechMates program back in 2021, we have had over 15 beneficiaries benefit from the program. As of January 2023, over 6 TechMates had completed their learning internships and transitioned to project based contracts while two were on internship. The project based TechMates successfully completed their six months internship and gained the necessary skills needed to secure contract works for Ngong Road Children 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 over 3 digital marketers from the program to assist with Websites translation and management and act as community outreach officers to create awareness of the cardano eco system locally in Kenya. 

As of February 2023, one more intern joined the program under the developer path and we are working on recruiting 4 more alumni this month. So far, we have over 8 TechMates on the Project based contract working for NRCF and KLL. In total we have about 12 trained TechMates and 2 that dropped out. Out of the activeTechMates we have, half of them have an external job with Lido Nation. They polish the Lido Nation website as well as creating new features. Two of the TechMates who are in the digital marketing path have also been able to secure other 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, as well as carrying out deliveries among other roles. The other TechMate, Sallyanne, has started working for DirectEd as a consultant/ project freelancer. She is responsible for leading marketing campaigns for DirectEd on twitter, coming up with NFT- based fundraising strategies among other roles. These two are also the ones leading blockchain operations at the Ngong Road Blockchain Lab. 

The techmates have goals that they have set for themselves for this year. Some of the goals include becoming more profound in software development, securing more clients, taking additional online courses, applying for masters scholarship, taking software engineering scholarship courses at alx 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. The current TechMates are already making use of them and we are extremely grateful to Safaricom for this donation that will enable our students to transform their lives. We believe that we are already making progress with the program and we are looking to continue restructuring the program as per the market and clients needs. We are now even more inclined to add more employment programs to see our students and alumni succeed and transform their lives. 

The Elephant Girl Book Club

By Sallyanne Atieno

Appreciating our cultural diversity! What a way to kick-start NRCF book club 2023. The objective is to cultivate a reading culture among the 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 weekday during school breaks.
Growing up as a young Masaai Indigenous girl, Tunda (Primary department Senior Case Manager) shared her story with the girls. Listening to her story the girls were very fascinated by her childhood, growing up in the countryside, and were ready 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 as a way to help us appreciate the beauty found in our cultural diversity. One of the photos is a picture of me showing them a photo of a “sandgrouse” as one of the girls asked what type of animal it was.

Four more girls and five boys have expressed an interest to join the book club thus will be exploring how to incorporate them going forward.