The Kibera World Cup

This weekend SHOFCO hosted the first annual Kibera World Cup! Twenty youth soccer teams (boys 16 and under) from all over Kibera competed in the two-day tournament. The games coincided with the final games of the actual World Cup in South Africa and mirrored its structure. On the first day, teams were placed into lettered groups where they played “round robin” style. Two fields, three referees, and forty games in one day! Winners from each group competed in the knockout rounds on the second day, including the quarterfinals, semifinals, and a big final match at the end of the tournament.

SHOFCO's 16 and under team finished 4th place, after a tough penalty shootout loss to “More Fire” in the semifinals (Other creative team names from the tournament include: “Super Disc”, “Lexus”, and “Mexico”). Eventually, “More Fire” defeated “Mexico” in an exciting final game that all of the teams stayed to watch. The top four teams in the tournament all won official World Cup soccer balls and cash prizes, handed out in a closing ceremony at the end of the game.

During the event we also enjoyed performances from the acrobatic dance troupe “Kibera Hamlets”, as well as an exuberant skit from the SHOFCO youth drama team based on HIV/AIDS awareness. We also had face painting and balloons for the younger kids, as well as juice, soda, bread, and biscuits for the players and fans all watching. Before the final match, the Shining Hope volunteers (“Team Obama”) were challenged to a friendly match against the SHOFCO girls soccer team, which was a lot of fun, but highlighted our embarrassing mzungu soccer skills. Hundreds of people came to watch the games, especially kids, and everyone had a blast!


This amazing community event would not have been possible without our amazing youth soccer director, “Coaches” (his nickname – his real name is Ken, but he's known by everyone as “Coaches” so there's no confusion with our boss Kennedy!). Not only does he organize and coach all of SHOFCO's youth soccer teams, but he organized the entire event with Leah, our incredible Development Director. All in all, it was a great weekend for SHOFCO and a perfect way for the community to celebrate the World Cup!

The Power of Sponsorship

Sarah just finished her pre-school year at the Kibera School for Girls. She is exceptionally sweet, affectionate, bright, and has a smile that can make any of us melt in an instant. You simply cannot help but love this little girl who is constantly reaching to hold your hand. We originally thought Sarah had a degenerative eye disease that was causing her to go blind, but after taking her to an eyecare specialist last year, it was determined that her eyes actually had severe allergies, but no degeneration. These allergies were causing vision impairment, constant rubbing and erosion of the cornea, and pigment leaking into her whole eye, making it appear extremely dark. A recent visit from an optometrist at the school made us question Sarah's previous diagnosis. Once again, Sarah needed to see an opthamologist. Primary healthcare is covered by the general sponsorship program, which goes a very long way in Kibera. Unfortunately, specialist care is expensive and beyond what the school’s budget can afford for primary healthcare coverage of our girls.


Luckily, by some twist of fate, Sarah had been matched with an unusually generous and doting sponsor. This sponsor had previously reached out to offer any additional aid Sarah might need – especially for her eyes. When we realized that Sarah urgently needed to see a specialist last week because her eyesight had gotten worse, I contacted Sarah’s sponsor to ask for help. I got an immediate, positive response. It felt amazing to tell Sarah that we were going to help her see better. And as I held Sarah’s hand on the way to the eye doctor, I told her about Margot -- her special sponsor who loved and cared about her all the way from America, and was helping us take her to the doctor. She looked up at me and Sammy and smiled her priceless smile. Thanks to sponsors like Margot, we can get our wonderful girls the help they truly need and deserve.

This week, 25 new students will start at the Kibera School for Girls. Most of them will be in the pre-school class, and a few will be filling open spots in the three older classes. All of them are in need of sponsors (photos to be posted soon on our website). The Sponsorship Program is a fantastic way to get involved in the Kibera School for Girls. Sponsors get matched to a specific girl in need, and provide their child with nutritious food, uniforms, and primary healthcare. In return, sponsors receive bi-annual updates about the student, as well as hand-written letters from their child. Some supporters have also found that a year of sponsorship funds can make a meaningful gift for a loved one! If you are interested in sponsorship, please email me at: Leah@hopetoshine.org.

Kennedy and Jessica Win Echoing Green!

We couldn't be more proud of our Shining Hope for Communities co-founders, Executive Director Kennedy Odede and Managing Director Jessica Posner. The two have just been selected for the prestigious 2010 Echoing Green Fellowship.

The Echoing Green Fellowship program provides seed capital and support to some of the world’s best emerging social entrepreneurs. At Echoing Green, we know that change comes not just from a well-funded idea or an innovative model. It comes from human beings who align their heads with their hearts to become engines for social change.

Learn more, and watch their video here.

American Friends of Kenya Comes to Visit

We’ve had a busy last few days! We had a visit from American Friends of Kenya, who donated a huge number of boxes with supplies for the school and clinic. Thanks to the AFK book donations and library science expertise, we will soon have a completely digital library! We are in the process of collating the books, and, using new bar codes, we will be able to check out books to the community!

AFK also held a day-long clinic, where they provided physical exams for the girls at the school as well as for a number of community members. There were specific consultations as well, including a visit by an optometrist. An expert midwife, Rochelle, held a workshop on maternal and infant health for a new team of community health workers, beginning the training for the upcoming health care team at our own clinic!

While the girls were in school, we spent all day Tuesday reorganizing the office, so we now have a real space where we can work. Now we can now find what we’re looking for!

The girls are working harder than ever, impressing everyone each day. They are always busy, and just chose their independent research topics. We're in the process of arranging field trips that pertain to each child's topic. We also hope to take a group trip to the post office!

The older girls are singing everything from “Going on a Lion Hunt” to “Peel Bananas” in their after-school program, and are enthusiastically dancing along. We’re all excited to see what they’ll get up to next!

That’s all for now, but tomorrow is sure to be another busy day!

On the ground and running

Aaaaand…We’re Back!
The Shining Hope for Communities U.S. Team has officially landed in Nairobi for an incredibly exciting summer of work in Kibera. Not only does this mean that a fantastic array of new projects and school developments, but it means that blogging is back, and better than ever before. We hope to have new updates every few days—so please stay tuned and keep checking back for stories, photos, and video!

What’s going on at the Kibera School for Girls and the Shining Hope for Community Center? Here are the summer project highlights you can look forward to:

Kibera School for Girls (KSG): Interviews are currently underway for the newest pre-K class of students. Fifteen of Kibera’s best and brightest young women will be admitted in the next few weeks—and we are already so excited about the applicants! So far there have been 150 families that have submitted applications for the spots. KSG is tuition-free, and is committed to providing the girls in the most dire financial circumstances, Executive Director Kennedy Odede is personally conducting home visits to assess the financial situation of the families. All people who live in the Kibera slum live in extreme poverty, but the students at KSG rank among the most poor even in the slum. To get a spot at the school, parents agree to volunteer for five weeks a year.

The first year of the Kibera School for Girls was a resounding success. Thanks to the hard-work of their teachers, even the youngest of our students are reading, writing, and speaking in English. They can do addition easily, give you a history of countries in Africa, and love going to school. We couldn’t be happier with the progress of our students. A few weeks ago a teacher took one student to take an entrance test at the nearest government school, just for comparison’s sake. Our 2nd grade student placed into a 5th grade classroom! At KSG our students love learning (this week they made puppets with a visitor, wrote storybooks about their lives, learned about proteins and vitamins, and started science experiments with soil. The atmosphere at school is lively. Students are always singing and smiling—school is a very happy place to be! Parents are always around to contribute, and it’s clear how beloved the school is by the community as a whole. Our staff of teachers and administration is overwhelmingly committed and skilled—they are leaders that are cherished by parents and community members alike.

The Green Bio-Latrine Center: Construction has been completed on the bio-latrine center adjacent to the school! The final piece of the process was to hook the structure up to a water pipeline—and yesterday, we did it! Already the nearby community is using the faucet to fill up water for cooking and cleaning, and the bio-latrine is slated to open early next week, as soon as Nairobi Water comes to turn on our water meter. The bio-latrine uses innovative green technology to convert waste into methane gas—providing the community with access to sanitary toilets (a desperate need) while offsetting carbon emissions. The facility is absolutely beautiful---one of the most amazing facilities our staff has ever seen. It’s a cheerful green color, and has six toilets and three showers. We can’t wait to open for business! Stay tuned for plans for a dedication ceremony next week….

Johanna Justin-Jinich (JJJ) Community Clinic of Kibera: We have purchased a plot of land adjacent to the KSG that will be the site of our community health clinic (a difficult feat for high-density Kibera). We expect to start the beginning stages of construction next week on what will be a two-story six room clinic. All hands are on deck as we begin the process of assembling an expert staff of committed medical professionals to help run the clinic, unpacking and inventorying the hundreds of boxes of medical equipment and supplies shipped by partners AFK, and meeting with potential medical partners in Kibera and Nairobi. In addition, we have assembled a team of community health worker volunteers who have began training this week with American Friends of Kenya Medical Team. There are many clinics in Kibera—but this will be the first clinic that remains truly community run, and accountable to the people it serves. We’ve spent a lot of time in area clinics this week with several ill students—and the need for our clinic has just become even clearer.

Gardens for Growth Gardens Initiative: The community garden next to the school is growing lush with fresh veggies! Our garden is overflowing with kale, spinach, a local green vegetable, peppers, onions, and maize. Parent volunteers have been harvesting the vegetables to cook the nutritious lunches for the KSG students each day. This week we are making vertical gardens for all parents to take home, and in the coming weeks we will begin to distribute them in the community.

SHOFCO Youth: SHOFCO teens and young-adults have been active at the multi-purpose room of the school making beautiful beaded bracelets for sale in the U.S. three days a week, and recently have begun rehearsing a new play that they hope will spark conversation among their peers in Kibera about HIV transmission and gender abuse. They keep the atmosphere around the Shining Hope Community Center filled with life. We’re also building additional space for the community center, as our current community space and school are filled daily with over one hundred people—keeping us all busy!

Women’s Microfinance Empowerment Workshop: Our women’s group is going strong. They meet each day to make bracelets and sew bags to earn an income. Their work is beautiful, and they love having a safe space to come together and share, while earning a living wage.
The Dennis Silver Memorial Library: Thanks to the generous donations of books and library expertise from the American Friends of Kenya, our library has grown to over three-thousand books—but what’s more—it has been digitized and catalogued electronically so it will be completely searchable, and we will be able to check out books to the students and wider community. We can’t wait to expand this center.

Jessica and Kennedy are joined this summer by several full-time staff volunteers Ari Tolman, Leah Lucid, and Ilana Nelson-Greenberg, along with Sammy McGowan for the summer. Together with the staff of the community center and school—we invite everyone to follow along as we establish the JJJ clinic, continue the work of the school, start a boarding facility, open our bio latrine, and continue to make a difference for women and the Kibera community as a whole.

Learning About More than Math

Catherine Mumba

Today Kate O'Reilly-Jones, one of two fantastic recent wesleyan alums who is spending several months working at the school, wrote me a very touching email that I'd like to share with all of you. As I wrote about recently, Angela Acheing's family lost their house and all of their belongings in a recent fire. Kate and Matt, our other wonderful wesleyan alum, went to purchase a few necessities for the family today (blankets, food, clothing, etc.) As Kate and Matt showed the teachers what they had found for Angela a touching moment occurred. Here is what Kate writes:

"When the teachers were looking at the clothes Matt and I got at Toi market for Angela, Catherine (another student) started pulling out things out of her backpack that she’d brought for Angela- she brought her at least two pieces of clothing and a cup and plate. I was just very impressed that and HIV+ orphan who lives in Kibera would give away her things to someone she thought needed them more."

This is indeed astonishing. Catherine is one of our most needy students. She is indeed HIV positive, lives with her grandmother as both of her parents died of AIDS, and has almost no possessions to her name. The fact that Catherine (and other students as well) have brought in their "extra" belongings to give to Angela (students have brought clothes, plates, cups, and even food to share) is so very meaningful. It makes it clear that our students are learning much more than math, science, and language at The Kibera School for Girls.... they are learning about leadership, kindness, and the power of passing on a good deed. Their education is teaching them to be contributors in their community and world.

Tragedy Strikes

Often times the most difficult part of the work we do is that in the midst of movement towards hope tragedy strikes. Daily life at the school is going on wonderfully.... our students are engaged, passionate and making tremendous steps every single day.

Today was a day like most others at the school. Students began learning at 7:30, working on projects about eco-systems and conservation. Then, at about 11:00 terrible news reached the school: a fire had begun in Kibera. In Kibera fires are often devastating due to the close proximity of houses and the ease of rapid spreading. Luckily, the fire was no where near our school (which is well protected from fires due to its isolation from other buildings, gutters and a ditch). However, at pick up time Angela Achieng's older sister came to school for pick up and informed Angela and our community that their house and belongs burned to the ground.

In times like this, our school community is strong. Several of our students immediately offered to bring in any extra clothes that they have for Angela tomorrow, demonstrating the kindness and thought for others that is central to our curriculum.

Angela is a wonderful student and member of our community. Angela is six years old and the youngest of six children. She’s very bright, excelling in both language arts and math, and she enjoys playing on her own. Most days after school, she works on puzzles, draws pictures, and plays freeze dance. Neither of Angela’s parents is consistently employed, so her family only eats when they can afford to. They appreciate that Angela and the other girls receive a great education at the Kibera School, regardless of their financial situations. We will provide Angela with consistent emotional support, and the school community will also work to find temporary housing, as well as to find means to help the family rebuild their lives.