Shining Hope's Volunteer Opportunities!

Are you interested in coming to Kenya to volunteer with Shining Hope for Communities? We have new opportunities open for summer and year-long volunteers at our projects in Kibera! If you are interested in living abroad, doing development work, and changing lives, you may be perfect for one of these positions.

We are looking for enthusiastic summer volunteers to work primarily at the Kibera School for Girls for our new Summer Institute. To read more about it, please click here.

We are also looking for interns to help run our programs in Kibera for a year. To read more about these opportunities, please click here.

Please pass the word on to anyone you know who would be interested. We look forward to hearing from you!

Thank you for helping us reach our goal!

We would like to sincerely thank everyone who made our matching campaign such a great success. Newman's Own Foundation has officially matched your $50,000 in donations!

To read our note of gratitude, please click here.

And here is our thank you video:

Margaret's Safe Place girls update!

The girls at our boarding facility, Margaret's Safe Place, are doing incredibly well! They are all flourishing in the house under the care of our school's social worker and they absolutely love living together as sisters!

This weekend we visited the house and they paused their game of soccer to enjoy lollipops!



From left to right: Matron Ishmael, Lucy, Beldin, Prudence, Sarah, Ciro, and Faith

KSG Parent Meeting

The Kibera School for Girls held a meeting for all of its parents this past Friday. Baba Diana (Father of pre-kindergarten student Diana) is the Chair of the Parent Committee. He can be seen here preparing his notes at the KSG library, where the meeting was held. The Parent Committee consists of 6 highly dedicated parents who meet every week. They help plan meetings with all of the KSG parents to discuss important issues.

The most recent parent meeting discussed topics relevant to the start of the new school year, such as class reassignment. We held academic assessments at the end of 2010 and have moved some students around according to their skill levels. Our Administrator George and Baba Diana explained this carefully to the parents. We also gave away clothing donated by a Kenyan company, which the parents were extremely happy to receive.

It was a very successful meeting!

We Have Vaccines!

The Johanna Justin-Jinich Community Clinic officially received vaccines today in Kibera! We are all very excited about this new development for our child wellness program.

Pictured here is our nurse Katherine holding one of our new vaccines. Katherine sees all of our expectant mothers and young pediatric patients at the JJJ Clinic!

KSG Students Brushing Their Teeth!

The Kibera School for Girls has a new tradition -- brushing teeth together after lunch! Each of our students has a toothbrush with her name on it. They have learned how to properly brush their teeth (with toothpaste) and are so excited to own their own toothbrushes! The SHOFCO compound turns into a tooth-brushing-party around 1pm every day.

It is adorable to watch!

Sarah's Trip to the Eye Hospital!

Yesterday, we took our student Sarah to Lions Sight First Eye Hospital in Nairobi -- a wonderful facility specializing in all kinds of eye care!

Sarah has been suffering from chronic allergies that make her eyes inflamed and itchy, causing her to scratch them and impair her vision. They checked her symptoms and her vision yesterday at her appointment. We came in expecting Sarah to need a surgical procedure -- an injection of steroids directly in the eye -- but were relieved to learn that she no longer needed the procedure!

The doctor is optimistic that Sarah's allergies will decrease as she gets older, and was happy to tell us that the prescription eye drops have made huge improvements for the inflammation and itchiness of Sarah's eyes since her visit last month! Thanks to the generous help of her wonderful sponsor, we have been able to take Sarah for regular follow-ups at Lions Eye Hospital.

Interested in helping a KSG student like Sarah through sponsorship? To learn more, please click here.