Shining Hope: Update from Kenya

Can’t believe it’s been seven months since I arrived in East Africa!  After spending 3 months working in Uganda with Educate!, who is empowering Uganda’s future leaders through leadership and social entrepreneurship training, I moved on to Nairobi, Kenya in early March.  Since arriving, I have been working with an amazing organization, Shining Hope for Communities, based in Kibera.  Kibera is the largest slum in Africa (2nd in the world), with an estimated population of 1-1.5 million.

Shining Hope was started by Kennedy Odede, who grew up in Kibera and Jessica Posner, an American, who

Kindergarten Art Class with Teacher Julia

first came to Kenya as a study abroad student in 2007.  From their unlikely friendship grew Shining Hope for Communities.  In their words:

“Shining Hope for Communities combats inter-generational cycles of poverty and gender inequity by linking tuition-free schools for girls to essential social services for all. In our innovative, two-step model, women and girls are placed at the center of community development in places of extreme poverty.

Grace, Lensa, Michelle, Mercy (photo taken by a pre-k student in art class)

First, we build tuition-free schools for girls, which give the neediest and brightest girls the education they need to become the engines of economic prosperity and social change for their communities. The second step of our model provides the community-at-large with tangible benefits through integrated social services operating adjacent to the school.  These social services include a community health clinic, clean toilet initiative, youth and community education, and economic development.”

To give you a sense of the need in Kibera:

-Life expectancy in Kibera is 30 years of age compared to 50 years of age in the rest of Kenya.
-Kibera’s 1.5 million residents share 600 toilets, meaning that on average one toilet serves 1,300 people.
-1 out of 5 children in Kibera do not live to see their fifth birthdays.
-Only 8% of girls in Kibera ever have the chance to go to school.
-66% of girls in Kibera routinely trade sex for food by the age of 16.   Many begin as early as age six.

At Shining Hope I have been working on a variety of things, but my main project is helping to set up a metrics and evaluation system and administration systems that can scale (in 2 years they have gone from 0 paid employees to over 50). I know that doesn’t sound very interesting, but it’s a super important part of building an effective scalable organization.  

Scrap Booking

 In addition, I have been helping to coordinate Shining Hope’s summer institute for American college volunteers, working on developing a creative arts curriculum and teaching art classes.  As part of the creative arts curriculum development and art classes, I worked to convert a storage closet into an art room equipped with a fully stocked art supply cabinet.  The supplies for the art classes and much of the supply closet was funded by WMF.  Check out some pictures below.

Lensa and her Mom with their paper flower and yarn vase creations.

Sarah and her Mom at a Parent/Child Art Class

Me with Mama Ken, Cinderella, Martha and Teacher Florence (photo taken by a grade 1 student)

Natasha and her younger sister in the new art room, with their pattern kites. (Siblings are invited to come to the Parent/Child art classes.)