Ms. Koons is visiting Red Rose and other schools in Kibera. She and LitWorld director Pam Allyn will conduct a two-day professional development workshop for eight teachers from community schools that serve nearly 500 children in the slums of Kibera. The goal of the workshop will be to train the teachers on the methods for helping their students become better readers and writers. “I am very thankful and delighted to have these members of LitWorld at Red Rose and we look forward to working with them in more projects in the future,” said Ken Okoth, chairperson of the Children of Kibera Foundation.

To kick off the Kibera Online Project, three visiting board members of Children of Kibera Foundation from the USA inaugurated the new fully equipped computer lab at the Red Rose School in Kibera in July 2008. The Dell Latitude laptop computers for this pilot computer lab were donated by St. Lawrence University in Canton NY. The computers are loaded with software for word-processing, presentations, ditigal image editing, movie editing, educational games and a host of other learning programs for math, language, science and art. Other supporters of the foundation also contributed funds towards the purchase of a laser printer, digital cameras, and the installation of wireless internet access, which should be completed by early this fall.

The Kibera Online Project will be a long term multi-faceted program of teacher training, setting up of appropriate computer classes and an information technology curriculum, providing and maintaining the software, hardware, and other resources necessary for the project to succeed in its goals of making sure that all children graduating from Kibera elementary schools will be computer literate in the next five to ten years.

“The Kibera Online Project is a very ambitious endeavor,” explained Ken Okoth. “We are looking to partner with other organizations that can provide us with hardware, funds for software purchases, training for the teachers in Kibera, and affordable reliable access to the internet so the children of Kibera really are not left behind as the rest of the world zooms ahead on the information superhighway.”

For the children of Kibera, one of the world’s largest slums, the only way out is through education. The Children of Kibera Foundation is dedicated to helping children receive quality education. The Red Rose School is our first, major project.

Education in Kenya is technically free for students from nursery age through eight grade. In practice however, the public schools are dramatically and incredibly overcrowded. The schools in Kibera are especially overwhelmed. A typical public school first grade class has 85 students and 1 teacher. Children share desk space and take turns sitting because there is not enough space for everyone. Books, while treasured, are virtually non-existent. In every way, the public schools and the children therein are struggling. By the seventh and eight grades, many students give up and drop out. With the challenges facing the public school system, many children, especially orphans, are refused admission.

The Red Rose School was opened to offer children, all of whom are poor and some of whom are orphans, a place to learn. Red Rose receives no government funding. Families who can afford to pay something make incredible sacrifices to keep their child in Red Rose and out of the public school alternative. Children who cannot afford to pay tuition rely on the of The Children of Kibera Foundation and on the generosity of donors.

In 2007 through the donations of wonderful people, Children of Kibera Foundation fully sponsored 35 children. We also paid teachers’ salaries, built and furnished a new classroom, provided new uniforms, created a library, built a computer lab out of donated laptops and helped the school add a third grade. In 2008, after the election turmoil, we know that the need for our help will be even greater. Many families who could pay tuition have lost their business due to looting and fires. Many others have lost their homes. Please consider helping.

Through the Children of Kibera Foundation, simple gifts make extraordinary differences. Here are some examples of the power of your donation.

$10 = buys 5 pairs of new, red uniform socks
$35 = provides 1 new uniform including a red sweater, a white shirt and a dress for the girls or khaki slacks for the boys
$85 = sponsors 1 child for three months of school
$100 = buys 5 pairs of good, leather uniform shoes (a real scarcity)
$250 = sponsors 1 child’s tuition and meals for a full year
$500 = pays the school’s rent for 3 months
$1200 = pays the salary of one teacher for a full year
$2500 = builds a new classroom at the school
$5000 = pays for 3,000 meals (or food for 100 kids for a month)
$10,000 = a leadership donation towards the purchase of the school’s land
$30,000 = Secures the school’s future by purchasing the school’s land, which is currently rented

To learn more about the Red Rose School, check out their blog at http://redrosechildren.blogspot.com/

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At McLean’s Potomac School, a desire for charity has brought students face to face with the harsh realities of politics in the developing world.

Last summer, a group of Potomac School students, teachers and parents visited the Red Rose Nursery and Children’s Centre in Kibera, Nairobi, Kenya. The group brought gifts of textbooks, uniforms and money for scholarships to Red Rose.

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Ken Okoth grew up in a slum on the outskirts of Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. But he found a way out of the cycle of poverty, winning a scholarship to an American university, and going on to become a teacher at a prestigious local high school. He joins Kojo to discuss the violence in his native country, and why he believes education is a source of– and possible solution to– the political turmoil.

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Okoth grew up poor in Kibera, but he got out — first to an American university on scholarship, and then to a job teaching history in McLean, Va.

When mobs angry over the result of Kenya’s disputed presidential election began burning shanties and killing members of rival tribes, Okoth knew it was time for his family to leave…

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MCLEAN, Va. (WUSA) — Ken Okoth escaped the slums of Nairobi for America thanks to hard work, luck and scholarships from St. Lawrence and Georgetown Universities.
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“I lived in a 10 by 10 room and slept on a dirt floor,” he recalls.

Physically, the 30 year old high school history teacher at the Potomac School in McLean, Virginia, is 8,000 miles away from that dirt floor in a Nairobi slum, but he never left in mind or spirit. For the past three years, he has worked with the students, parents and faculty at his school to raise money for the Red Rose Nursery and Children’s Center located in Kibera, one of the worst slums in Nairobi.

Thanks to the efforts of elementary, middle and high school students and their families, students at the Red Rose have a new classroom and 90 students have “uniforms, books, food and hope,” says Okoth…

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