The Songa School: Developing New Horizons in Slums          

The Kenyan Child Foundation is proud to announce the launch of its second educational project in Nairobi, Kenya. The initiative will develop a teaching center for children living with disabilities in the Mukuru slums of Nairobi. Our vision is to construct a child-centered facility for over 200 students – classrooms, gardens, playground, cafeteria and care rooms – to offer opportunities to the children who need it most, named the Songa School.

Over 500,000 people live in the Mukuru Slums which are located a few kilometers away from the capital city of Kenya, Nairobi. Stretching along the highly polluted Nairobi Ngong river and beside the municipal city dump, Mukuru is one of the largest slums in Nairobi and Africa. It is located inside the abandoned wasteland of a former industrial area of the city. Families here face huge barriers to formal education, basic amenities such as water are in extremely short supply and there is almost no access to sanitation facilities. Open sewerage runs along the streets.

The Kenyan Child Foundation aims to offer better educational opportunities to children living with disabilities in Mukuru, as they are some of the most socially disadvantaged people living in the slum. Due to stigma, children and people living with disabilities are sometimes seen as a source of fear and shame in Kenya, with some tribal cultures viewing disability as a curse. Faced with such adversity, people living with disabilities are five times more likely to be abused in slums in Kenya. Part of the Kenyan Child Foundation’s aim is to use education as a tool to dispel such beliefs, primarily by offering new educational opportunities to these children and through our advocacy work.

The construction project will be managed over a timeframe of 48 weeks and will comprise of new purpose-built educational facility of over 14,900 sq ft. The project aims to reach completion in Summer 2021. The Songa school derives its name from the Swahili, to advance. We believe that the students of this school will have the chance to build a better life for themselves with the education and tools they receive there.

The Kenyan Child Foundation is also pleased to announce that during the current Covid – 19 Global Pandemic our partners, doners & volunteers have continued to work with great success on this project that will make a real difference to the lives of the children living with disabilities in Mukuru, Nairobi.

The Kenyan Child Foundation would like to thank the partnership and operational expertise of the Mukuru Promotion Centre (MPC) who are beneficiaries of this educational project. Similarly, the Kenyan Child Foundation greatly appreciates the support from our donors and volunteers: without their resources and time, achieving these critical projects simply would not be possible.