Our Current Projects
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The Kibera School for Girls
We believe that children should be actively engaged in their own learning. At The Kibera School for Girls, students are taught how to learn and trust their own decision making to foster independence through our innovative curriculum based on principles of creativity, hands-on learning, the importance of play, and tolerance. As the very first school of its kind in Kenya, The Kibera School for Girls changes the lives of its students, their families, and the position of women in the community. Read more about this project and keep up with day-to-day life at the school on our blog.
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The Kibera School for Girls is a revolutionary project in Nairobi’s Kibera slum, the largest slum in Africa. The school is the first school exclusively for girls and the only completely free school in the Kibera slum. Our school provides the most needy girls in Kibera with free education, uniforms, school supplies, and daily nourishment. On August 21st 2009 our school opened its doors to the first three classes: pre-school, kindergarten, and first-grade. A recent assessment showed that in just three months our students are a full year ahead of their peers in traditional Kenyan schools.
In Kibera only 8% of girls have the chance to go to school and many are forced into prostitution at early ages. Our school offers a solution to these problems. The Kibera School for Girls serves the slum’s most talented students who are also most vulnerable to sexual abuse and prostitution. Many students are street children, orphans, and infected with the HIV virus.
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The Shining Hope Community Center
The Shining Hope Community Center makes essential social services available to the entire community through The Kibera School for Girls. In environments like Kibera simply providing education is not enough to change the status of women in society. By providing the community at large with tangible benefits associated with a facility dedicated to female education our model cultivates a community ethos where women are able to live as valued members of the society.
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“In many parts of the world women are routinely beaten, raped, or sold into prostitution. They are denied access to medical care, education, and economic and political power. Changing that could change everything.“-The New York Times Magazine
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The Shining Hope Community Center includes:
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Green Bio-Latrine Center: In Kibera more than an average of 150 people share a single makeshift toilet overflowing with human waste. Instead many resort to what are referred to as “flying toilets,” defecating into a paper bag and discarding the contents. As a result of poor sanitation disease and epidemics claim the lives of thousands. We are currently building a bio-digester underneath six expertly engineered latrines. As we build we are creating jobs and educating the community about eco-sustainability. This innovative green technology converts human waste into methane gas through advanced anaerobic processes. This gas can then be harvested and used as cooking fuel or converted into electricity. The process also produces retail-grade fertilizer that we can use in our garden and sell to the community. Our bio-center will provide the community with the only available sanitary toilets while reducing carbon emissions and turning human waste into efficient energy.
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The Dennis Silver Memorial Library: The library is open to families of students and the Kibera community after school hours and on weekends. Inside the library we are starting a computer lab (we currently have four computers) also available for public use. In our library we will give our students the computer and research skills they need to uncover the opportunities provided by the internet. We also plan to offer adult literacy and computer education classes.
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Sustainable Garden and Training: We have started a sustainable garden using an innovative agricultural technique called “vertical gardens.” These gardens are planted inside burlap sacks to maximize space and triple the number of stems that can be grown. We are teaching the community and families how to grow vertical gardens, as they can be built anywhere by anyone because they do not require land. Community members can then sell the produce as a small business venture and feed their families. Along with this project we are teaching our students about nutrition and sustainable agriculture.
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SHOFCO-KENYA Youth Center: A true grassroots initiative, SHOFCO-KENYA was started by Kennedy Odede in 2005. It is the first indigenous and self-sustaining organization in Kibera founded and run by residents of the slum itself. SHOFCO-KENYA is run by young people and includes a theatre group, several soccer teams (over 200 youths play on the SHOFCO teams), a girls empowerment program, a sustainability and sanitation department, a computer technology department, a journalism and communications group, and microfinance programs. In addition members of SHOFCO-Kenya meet each week to discuss the issues that they encounter and problem solve together, promoting positive communication and collective solutions.
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Women’s Microfinance Empowerment Workshop: This workshop is dedicated to improving the lives of women living with HIV/AIDS through microfinance. We have already given 35 women loans to begin successful small businesses. We have also trained these women to use a sewing machine. They will soon begin to make lap top bags and take tailoring jobs.
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Our Future Projects:
With your help in the next year we’d like to:
Build a boarding facility for students who have been raped or are especially vulnerable to abuse
Provide more job and sustainable agricultural training to the community
Build the only solar water purifying system in Africa large enough to provide clean water to the entire community every day.
Start the first rape crisis center
Build and run the only entirely free community health center specializing in women’s health
 Pre-schooler Prudence Achieng can’t wait to learn to read
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