Give Hope to the Voiceless Children in Kenya

Challenge
According to UNESCO, Sub-Saharan Africa has the lowest literacy rates in the world at 75% for youth. In Kisumu, this is even lower at 66% despite Free Primary Education in the country. This is largely due to the challenges faced by the disadvantaged communities living in the slums and rural areas: absenteeism due to inability of schools/parents to provide food; repeated illness as a result of poor hygiene and sanitation; no access to books, learning material; limited access to sanitary pads.

Solution
We offer several programs to schools in the slums and rural areas of Kisumu to address these issues. This includes providing daily meals, learning material, books, access to soap and running water, clean drinking water, sanitary pads and through collaborations, shoes and basic medication. This will encourage parents who are not able to provide these for their children, to send them to school. Our efforts have increased enrollment by 46% and participation by 73% in the schools we work with.

Long-Term Impact
We firmly believe a structured, multi-pronged approach that combines both philanthropic and entrepreneurial solutions like our programs will have a longer-term effect that will uplift entire communities from abject poverty. Working directly with communities and giving them part-ownership (with affordable targets like $0.05 per day for feeding programs) gives them a chance to grow gradually and sustain these programs. We aim to increase our impact from 250 to 1,000 students in the coming year.