Ngong Road Children's Foundation

We empower Nairobi children living in poverty to transform their lives through education and support, leading to employment.

The Elephant Girl Book Club

By Sallyanne Atieno

Appreciating our cultural diversity! What a way to kick-start NRCF book club 2023. The objective is to cultivate a reading culture among young boys and girls. The first book is “The Elephant Girl” a story of Jama – a young Maasai girl who befriended a Baby elephant.)

The Book club was launched on Saturday 28th, January 2023. A second session was on held Monday 30th. Going forward sessions will be held on Saturdays and weekdays during school breaks.
Growing up as a young Masaai Indigenous girl, Tunda (Primary department Senior Case Manager) shared her story with the girls. Listening to her story the girls were very fascinated by her childhood, growing up in the countryside, and were ready to learn more from the book.

We started with only three girls and since we only had one copy of the book. We are applying the read-aloud and around method for the sessions. This way everyone gets to read two chapters before the other.
Since all the girls were born in the city and none of them is Maasai, Tunda thought of sharing a little bit of her culture with them during the second session. She thus adorn them with the Maasai regalia for the session, and then they took pictures at the end of the session. It was an exciting experience for the young girls. They got a feeling of how Jama described her appearance during the community ceremony/occasion she attended with her mother and her Kokoo (Grandmother).

The pioneer girls are – Dorcas Atieno (from the Luo community) Esther Chebet (from the Kalenjin community and Getrude Ndunge (from the Kamba community) This was also a way to help us appreciate the beauty found in our cultural diversity. One of the photos is a picture of me showing them a photo of a “sandgrouse” as one of the girls asked what type of animal it was.

Four more girls and five boys have expressed an interest to join the book club thus will be incorporating them in the coming sessions of the book club.

The successful journey of Roseann

By Sallyanne Atieno

RoseAnn Chelangat Otieno joined Ngong Road Children’s Foundation (NRCF) in 2007 as one of the beneficiaries for the education program from primary school, through Secondary School to University. Her education journey was made successful through the financial support of her sponsor Steve Lewis.

Roseann completed her primary school education in 2012 scoring a B+ at GSU primary school. This earned her a spot in Nembu Girls High School, one of the best secondary schools in Nairobi where she got a B grade and transited to Maseno University to study a Bachelor’s Degree in Geospatial Information Science with IT, a course girls have always shied from. 

She however took it as a challenge and graduated in 2022 with a second Class Upper.

Roseann has held several leadership positions in her education journey beginning as a squad leader at Ngong Road Children’s Foundation, a Deputy School Captain, football Captain and Captain of students Campaign Against Drugs  at her high school. In Maseno University, she was a class representative.

She began her career at Kenya National Highways Authority, KeNHA, and later joined Digireg Kenya as a data operator in Kisumu County where she currently works. In her spare time, Roseann volunteers as an Environmental Champion and participates in  the UN-HABITAT- COVID-19 mitigation activities. Roseann also organizes a charity program at St Mary Magdalene Oasis of Peace Children’s Home in Kisumu County and a Street feeding program for street Children.

We wish Roseann a successful career journey.

2023 Alumni Camp

The Alumni Camp was held from Friday, 20th January 2023 To Sunday, 22nd January 2023 at the Duara Flamingo Camp, located in Elementaita, Nakuru (Lake Elementaita Lodge). The camp was intended to celebrate the accomplishments of the 2022 post-secondary graduates and welcome them to the alumni association as well as have their first Job preparedness training.

We had a total of 36 campers that included 31 alumni, 3 staff members and 2 facilitators from the organization. The alumni slept in tents and their meals were prepared by the hotel chefs We had a number of activities and training that were meant to develop their employability skills as well as their emotional intelligence. There was a training session that was conducted by Be The Leader (BTL) on job interview skills, digital marketing, entrepreneurship skills and career development. The objective of the training was to teach them how to be outstanding during an interview, how to make them visible to employers via social media and the basics of starting a business.

There were also lots of team competition activities like crazy games and Olympics. The alumni also got a chance to visit the Kariandusi prehistoric site and African Diatomite Industries Ltd to learn about the mining of diatomite (from skeletons of very tiny animals called diatoms) and its uses.

The camp was a success and we hope that the alumni got impacted positively from all the training and activities. We hope that they use the skills gained to better equip themselves for the employment and self-employment sectors.

A Young and Passionate Programmer

Meet Lenox, an aspiring game developer. Lenox is in grade 6 in one of our focus schools. Before joining the program, he had no clear picture of what he wanted to become once he grew up. After getting a sponsor, he started attending our programs, one of them being Computer Training. Lenox fell in love with computers and he has barely missed a class since then. 

In early 2022 when the new students’ resource center (Elimu Hub) was constructed and the computer lab pimped with new powerful computers, Lenox was one of the proudest beneficiaries of the structure and he’s amongst the students that utilize the facility a lot.

Lenox has committed to all that gets taught to him during the computer classes and his best session is usually the programming ones where he gets to apply his critical and creative thinking skills. His programming skills are impressive especially when it comes to scratch programming. Early January 2023 he was amongst five students that participated in a hackathon for scratch programming (Scratchathon) competition and he was voted one of the best students during the competition having led a team in developing a game using the scratch program and presenting it to the attendance on behalf of the team. He also got interviewed where he discussed his love for programming and his aspirations to become a web developer when he grows up.

Emmanuel Scholarship to Ghana

Emmanuel has been sponsored in his education journey for 12 years. Emmanuel joined the program in 2010 and was supported through his primary, secondary, and post-secondary education by Susan and Dave Plimpton.

His passion for technology started while in primary school thanks to the NRCF Computer Lab, which offered a platform to learn computers. He began attending computer classes and was eager to learn more, leading him to a desire to pursue a tech career path. In high school, Emmanuel was a good student who was very active in class participation. He was responsible and had leadership skills as he was the class monitor. After high school, Emmanuel underwent intensive computer training for three months where he received a certificate from the Computer Society of Kenya and Belmont College. He later joined Jomo Kenyatta University to pursue a degree in Business Information Technology.  He graduated in 2022. 

In 2021, NRCF launched a new tech internship program, TechMates,  designed to offer on-the-job training to graduates interested in tech careers. Emmanuel was among the pioneer interns of this program and underwent an eight months training program from September 2021 to May 2022.  During this internship, he was able to gain employment with Lido Nation as a software developer.  

In May 2022, NRCF launched an Entrepreneurship Programme to help alumni who were interested in starting a business by training entrepreneurial skills around business start-up, management, and sustainability. Emmanuel was, again, a pioneer of this program as he was interested in venturing into the business of website development and management. Emmanuel applied for a Tech Entrepreneurship Training scholarship at Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology in Ghana. This is a 1-year training program focused on tech entrepreneurship. He qualified for this program and has been invited to join the cohort in September 2022. 

Emmanuel has demonstrated superb leadership and resilience throughout his education journey. Emmanuel’s personal strengths are as impressive as his intellectual accomplishments. We celebrate all the milestones that he has achieved so far. The sky’s the limit for Emmanuel.