Quality education and life skills to children in Mathare, Kenya

State of progress : Ongoing funding | Number of beneficiaries : 1,000 children of school, and their families

Project duration : 2 years

Place : Kenya, Nairobi County, Kasarani Sub County, Mathare

 

Local partner

The Legacy Education Center (LEC) is a non-profit institution, created in 2010, designed to provide advocacy programs, empowerment of women and youth and educational opportunities to the most vulnerable children in the community of slum of Mathare. It is a community-based organization registered with the government of Kenya with the registration number KAS / CBO / 5/4/2012/495.

LEC has successfully developed several projects in the past including a sponsorship program, the Safisha Kijiji program (Keep your slum clean!), the return to school of all girls, the development of entrepreneurship skills and empowerment of children through sport.

Context

Overcrowding in the Mathare slum prevents those who want to learn from obtaining quality education. Currently, there is only one public primary school in the north of Mathare and it is unable to serve the large populations of children. Most parents in this region earn so little that they are unable to meet the educational requirements, whether for fees or for the necessary materials. As a result, children end up no longer going to school and are at the mercy of the danger, in particular of abduction, early child labor (housewives), of being exploited by adults to peddle drugs, steal, crime, etc.

The school itself faces many challenges preventing it from managing the high number of children in the slum: the sanitary facilities are not adapted, the children are too many in a small classroom …

The Mathare community school is trying to make the transition by allowing as many children as possible from slums to enroll in school and obtain education.

The mission / activities

Goal: Provide quality education and life skills to children and vulnerable youth of Mathare slums in a safe learning environment.

Specific objective: Sustainable improvement of educational activities through school and sport for children in the Mathare slum

  • Development of larger, safer and more education-friendly teaching facilities: new premises, provision of school uniforms, shoes, bags, etc., creation of a parents and teachers association
  • Improvement of teaching methods: recruitment and training of qualified teachers, development of student follow-up
  • Development of life skills of young people not in school through sport: formation of a youth committee for the organization of activities, supply of sports equipment, support for sports teams
  • Improvement of partner procedures (LEC): implementation of a strategy for the proper implementation of the project and its sustainability, implementation of an advocacy and empowerment campaign for the center

Beneficiaries

The main beneficiaries of this project will be children (around 1000), women, young people and teachers in the Mathare slum.

Secondary beneficiaries will include the entire Mathare community.