One Year Ago Today...

One of our sponsored students, Jane (or "Jenny" Muthoni) lost a life-long battle with HIV/AIDS. She was just 16 years old.

The world has lost a beautiful and inspirational young lady. Her dream, from the very first time we met her in a hospital bed, was to be able to finish high school. Thanks to a generous sponsor, she was able to attend school in the months prior to her passing.

In remembrance of her, here are a collection of pictures of Jenny on her first day back to school and blog posts that we have written to share her story.

Jenny's Passing - September 21, 2009

Going to School - February 2, 2009

Visiting Jenny at Home - August 1, 2008

Meeting Jenny - July 9, 2008

Tunza Counselors April and May reports

According to their most recent reports (apologies for being a little late on posting them), a lot of issues are currently taking place at the center. We are really grateful that Becky and Collins are there weekly to work with the kids. They provide them with some sense of stability and a positive outlet for what they are going through. We will try and see what else we can do to help.

Click HERE to read the April report.

Click HERE to read the May report.

Frightening Kenyan Statistics

Under 5 Mortality Rate (per 1,000 births)

105 in 1990
128 in 2008

Infant Mortality Rate

68 in 1990
81 in 2008

Life Expectancy

52 years in 1970
60 years in 1990
54 years in 2008

GDP per capita average annual growth rate

1.2% 1970 to 1990
0.1% 1990 to 2008

The captain of our Under 18 team explains why he loves playing for Uweza

More videos coming soon!

Tunza Counselor's March Report

Click HERE to read up on their progress!

Guest blog: Gilbert Nyakundi Bita

Gilbert has started working with us as a health education facilitator in Kibera. He has worked with our soccer teams and spoken to them about issues such as self esteem and HIV/AIDS. Today he has written a blog about what he would like to accomplish through his work with Uweza.
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According to the World Health Organization, Health is defined as: The general well being of an individual, physically, socially and mentally; not merely the absence of disease or infirmity! This in itself tells us that none of us is healthy! We all have areas that pins us down, and so is the community we live in!

Coming together as members of the global community, we can be able to achieve a healthy community. We at Uweza Aid Foundation are up to the goal of a healthy community, working with different departments but all under one goal “Healthy Community”

My name is Gilbert Nyakundi Bita; I am working as a volunteer facilitator in Uweza Aid Foundation. In the facilitation Department my aim is achieving the following goals:
* To enhance Behavior change and Behavior formation in regards to HIV/AIDS.
* To create awareness on HIV/AIDS.
* To enlighten the youth on how best they can use their free time.
* Help bring out the potentials within individuals
* Unite the youths and the community towards a healthy growth.

To achieve the above goals I have set up plans working with the youths starting with just few youths as follows:
* Recruit youths to peer educators
* Have regular seminars with the youths and some older members of the community.
* Recruit youth groups within the community
* Have the youths give regular reports regarding the peer education and the activities they are involved.
* Link the youths with other groups and organizations within and out of the community.

To have a healthy you and I, a healthy community is for sure. Through education, transformation to the community is achieved or carried out!

Involving the youth is helping the community use her potential at early stages. Remember “a well informed community is always for the positive incoming change and easily makes wise decisions” resources within the community are well used and managed through education by involvement of the youths too. I mean what can we say of security? Talk of manipulation, how about wasting a full potential in people? All these are taken care of by giving the right information to the subjects (Youths and community members). In brief Information followed by action is an achievement!!!(Gilbert 2010)

Most of the people are interested to know what propels this work especially what makes me like my job as a facilitator! Just to borrow some of Myles Munroe’s fact “Our minds are not empty vessels to be filled!.....”…..our minds just need a tapping reminder to be active!

I do facilitation first to bring out the you in you and help me get the me in me!

Another important thing is to give back/contribute to the community. It’s very fulfilling to see community members implement what they learn from me!

Gilbert N. Bita

Appreciation

We say it over and over again but it can't be said enough. We're so grateful to everyone that has donated, fund raised, spread the word, shared a link, blogged, tweeted, and e-mailed so that we can keep providing assistance to the people of Kibera.

We wanted to take the time to thank and recognize some organizations that have supported us in the past year.

So a big thank you to...

Vincentown United Methodist Church

Magnolia Road United Methodist Church

Tabernacle United Methodist Church

The Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation

Viv&Ingrid

Faces of Kibera

Check out their websites and stay tuned for more posts about our amazing supporters. And while you're at it, send us an e-mail if you'd like to find out about more ways to get involved!

Thanks for reading!

New Soccer Program!

In January, we started a new program with our four soccer teams in order to help them build skills and adopt behaviors that will be useful throughout their lives. Our coaches told us of a concern that many boys that play soccer in the slum become distracted from school or put all of their hopes into becoming major league soccer players. As a result, they become disappointed as adults when they find they should have focused more on academics or discover that they won't be able to play soccer for a living. Many of these boys may turn to drugs or crime.

As part of the new program, coaches award a certain amount "points" to their players during each practice. Points are awarded for performance in six different areas:

1. Attendance
2. Cleanliness
3. Timekeeping
4. Attitude/Discipline
5. Soccer Skills, Effort and Improvement
6. Academic Performance in school

At the end of each school term, coaches will total the points for all of the players. The three players with the highest point totals will receive funds toward educational costs (school supplies, school fees, uniforms, etc). Older boys that are no longer in school may receive funds for business start-up or training in a specific area such as driving or computers.


Joel Otieno, age 13, Points Leader for the Under 14 team

During the term, the boys with the highest point totals are eligible for special privileges. This coming weekend, the 22 players on our Under-17 and Under-14 teams that have earned the highest amount of points will be participating in a two-day tournament. They will be traveling out of Kibera to play against other teams from throughout Nairobi and receive brand new shoes to play in.

Our coaches have reported that attendance and the efforts of the boys have improved and we hope that the new program will motivate them to always do their best in soccer, in school and in life.

Tunza Counselors February Report

The Tunza counselors continue to adjust their program to cater to the specific needs of the kids at Tunza and they are making a lot of progress.

Click HERE to read about their work in February.

Counselors January Report

Click HERE to read the report written by the counselors we have hired to work at Tunza Children's Center about their work during the month of January.