KICOSHEP (Kibera Integrated Community Self-Help Programme) in Kibera, Nairobi’s largest slum, provides numerous educational, health, vocational, and outreach programs to address rampant poverty, illness, unemployment, alcohol and drug addiction, etc. Densely packed into 1.5 square miles–an area about the size of New York City’s Central Park –Kibera’s million-plus residents have little access to basic necessities such as electricity, clean water, sanitation and sewage disposal.
KCEF supports the particularly meaningful work of a school in one of Africa’s largest slums and to expand its work of educating and nurturing Kenyan children to include partnering with the KICOSHEP school–Started in 1993 with 10 abandoned children, Kicoshep has become an oasis of education, nurture and possibility for 350 Kibera children. All of the teachers live in Kibera so they understand the conditions and their student’s lives, and all teachers have a secondary diploma. The teaching of English begins in preschool.
Since 2012 KCEF has funded the school lunch program, ensuring that the children will have at least one nutritious meal every day–and watching attendance rates and test scores rise in the process.
Because of the expansion of the railroad through Kibera, Kicoshep was force off its land to a new location. Through the resourcefulness of Ann Owiti, the programs director, the World Bank has provide a new location and a new building. In the move there have been many challenges of adaptation to the new setting and acquisition of resources to maintain the needs of the programs.
How can I help? Support programs at KICOSHEP.
