Providing adequate education and a future for children living and working in the Dandora landfill

Status: Completed | Number of beneficiaries: 50 children and 70 parents

Project duration: 1 year

Location: Dandora Discharge, Nairobi, Kenya

 

Local Partner

Dandora Dumpsite Rehabitilation Group (DADREG)

The problem

On the Dandora landfill are children who work, with their mother or alone, sorting the waste from the landfill in order to find food, collect plastic, in order to earn a little money. They come from poor families living in slums around the landfill, or even on the site of the landfill. Mothers earn less than a dollar a day and often have at least two dependent children, which makes them live in conditions of extreme poverty. Because of the high cost of living, women are unable to send their children to school, and high rents result in many of these mothers living with their children on the landfill, feeding on food leftovers. they find on the spot, in spite of toxic waste dangerous for their health. In the long term, children who have dropped out of these families end up turning to jobs that do not require any skills, and stay on the landfill to dig and sort garbage all their lives.

Objectives / Activities

DADREG believes that a return of these children to school or in professional learning cycles is for them and their mother the only alternative that will allow them to consider a better future. It is therefore to allow a sustainable return to an adapted education and a dignified life for 50 children and young people living and / or working on the landfill, in particular through:

  • an “urgent” overall care of 50 children and adolescents (in terms of health, nutrition and psychology), adapted educational programs for each child and obtaining medical coverage;
  • Training in the vocational training center of DADREG where 30 teenagers and 20 children will be able to return to a traditional government curriculum (setting up and carrying out training, supporting young people to create an activity in the desired field, handing over a certificate of aptitude, upgrading, purchase of uniforms and school equipment …)
  • a peer sponsorship system that had the same difficulties as they and succeeded, as well as the establishment of a revolving fund allowing the purchase of “professional kits” with the setting up of groups of savings to encourage young people trained to work.
  • vocational training for parents and guardians of children so that they can learn to develop their own lucrative business and thus promote their return to work, and avoid as much as possible to go to the landfill.