Kibera Nursery School & Undugu Street Child Project Update

27 March

At the start of this year (Jan) we increased our giving to HOPEHIV. This money, after consultation with HOPEHIV, has been split between two projects. Some has gone to The Kibera Nursery that we already support, in order to allow the number of children that it can support to increase from 70 to 82 pupils. This has also been possible because of the new classrooms that have recently been built. The most recent pictures of Kibera can be found on our home page.

The remaining money has been allocated to the Undugu Society, which some of us were fortunate enough to visit in November. Our trip to visit the street children of Nairobi that Undugu work with was possibly the hardest part of the trip, but in many ways also one of the most rewarding.

The Undugu Society pioneered street child work in Kenya in 1973 with a focus on the enormous and deprived area of Kibera slums. Over the last few years, in partnership with HOPEHIV, they have responded to the increasing number of orphans affected by HIV who are flooding onto the dangerous streets of Nairobi, often fleeing abuse and in search of work.

Undugu's activities include:

- Informal secondary schools in Kibera slums
- Skills development training for young people (30 practical skills offered)
- Advocacy at national level on vulnerable children's issues
- Temporary residential shelter for street children
- Reintegration of street children back into safe family settings
- Piloting of 'street child associations' in Nairobi
- Community development and micro credit projects
- Production and export of fair trade goods

Since 2005, HOPEHIV has funded Undugu to pilot 'Street child associations' in Nairobi. These have been very successful in West Africa but have not been tried before in Kenya.

Associations use the groups that naturally form on the streets as a positive influence by training 'gang leaders' in life skills, leadership child rights and self esteem skills. Undugu's street team of trained social workers meet twice a week with each association, running sporting activities and training with them, identifying suitable vocational skills placements offering opportunity for the future and finding safe ways of generating an income.

Fifteen street child associations have already been set up and trained in 2006. They identify and refer new arrivals to the streets to Undugu so that reintegration can be explored before the child is hurt. In the first six months of this program, 150 street children have already been successfully reintegrated back into the community.

In 2007, HOPEHIV are supporting Undugu to set up and train 70 street child associations rehabilitating 2000 kids off the streets. Money from Add Momentum will fund leadership and advocacy training to 15 'gang leaders' who influence so many other children on the streets as well as offering a 1-year accredited skills training placement to 10 older group members enabling them to turn their lives around.