Partnership with Kora

Uweza recently teamed up with Kora Designs, a jewelry company that "merges the worlds of beautiful jewelry and sustainable business development in the belief that both can and will benefit. Our handmade pieces feature recycled materials found and used by local artisans in African developing communities." Kora means "work" in Kinyarwanda, Rwanda's native language. One of Kora's artisans is based in Kibera and uses bone and horn collected from local butcheries to create jewelry.

This year, Kora has created the Uweza necklace, which features dyed recycled cow bone with aluminum wrapping and was designed specifically for us! 100% of the proceeds from the sale of the necklace will go directly toward supporting the Uweza Community Center.

The necklace comes in two different colors, and can be purchased on Kora's website. Be sure to browse through the rest of their beautiful pieces as well!

Uweza Girls League

Our girls coach Joyce has organized for the Uweza girls team to play in a league with other girls Under-16 teams from outside of Kibera for a few months now. Every weekend, 25 girls cram into a 14-seat minibus and travel to Dagoretti to play a match. They are currently in fourth place in the league, having won two matches and drawn two.

Today, they had their hardest match yet against a team who has been playing with senior (adult) girls teams for a long time and has won several tournaments. There was also extra pressure on the girls as the league's sponsors were watching the match.

Every week as part of the league, both teams sit down for a small life skills talk before they play. Today's talk was about stigma.

The girls played a great game but struggled in the second half and lost 0-2. It was a very emotional loss for a lot of the girls as it was their first loss in the league and they really did their best. Many of the fans were commenting on Uweza's players and how talented and hard-working they were.




Two players from each team participating in the league, chosen by the league's organizers, will get the chance to attend a course in photography, life skills and soccer in Kilifi on the Kenyan coast.

Despite the loss, the girls had a great time. They have four matches to go and still have the opportunity to place in the top three in the league, which would earn them a new set of uniforms and some balls. We wish them the best of luck and will keep you posted!

Uweza Community Center Launch

Last month, we held the official launch and opening of the Uweza Community Center! In attendance were over 200 Uweza staff, program participants, parents, neighbors, and community leaders. A face painter from Kibera entertained children in attendance with face painting and balloons. Children spent their time dancing, hanging out and creating drawings of their future career goals. A talented painter from Kibera donated his artwork for the event to decorate the center.




After a question and answer session and speeches from Uweza staff, the chief of the area congratulated Uweza on the good work in the community and spoke about how much the community appreciated being involved in the center's opening and being made aware of our work. He wished us luck and expressed hoped that we would get many more donations.



The event was capped off with a delicious lunch. Everyone really enjoyed the day and we are very excited to start officially using our center!


Check out more photos from the event here: http://uweza.org/gallery/communitycenterlaunch.html.

Introducing the Uweza Community Center

It has been a while since we have posted because we have been busy at our new Community Center! As of last month, thanks to your generosity, we were able to raise enough money to complete the purchase of the building and make it our own. Congratulations to Sarah Dunnagan in New Orleans for winning the drawing to name a room!

In the past weeks, our Under-18 soccer team has helped us clean and paint the center.



Check out the photo galleries of the cleaning and painting for more pictures.

The students from our Sponsorship Program have started coming to the center after school to do their homework under the guidance of a qualified tuition. Kibera Agenda 4 Business Savings, the savings and loan group that we frequently partner with also held their first meeting at the center this afternoon.

Tomorrow, we will officially open the center and are celebrating with a launch party. If you are in Kenya, please feel free to stop by!

After working in Kibera for more than three years and running around without an office or meeting place, this is a huge accomplishment for us and we are so grateful to our supporters for making it a possibile. We are really excited for the coming months as the center will allow us to meet more frequently, work more efficiently and create new programs to better serve children and families in Kibera.

Third Soccer Prize Giving Day

Uweza held our 3rd Uweza Soccer Program Prizegiving Day this past Sunday, which awarded educational prizes to all of the players on our teams from under 8 years old to 18 years of age, including girls. Uweza holds prizegiving day for our soccer program at the end of each school term, three times a year. This Prizegiving Day was particularly special this time because it was the first time we invited the parents to attend with their children.

The day went amazing with many of our kids being accompanied to the field by their parents for the first time! The day started with the finals round of the U-18 league, with the coaches jumping in as one
team for good fun. The parents were cheering on for the players as they wrapped up their final matches for the term.

After the tournament finished, all the parents and children piled into the meeting hall to have refreshments and begin the prize awarding. At the end of the awards, each child who had been a dedicated Uweza player had received something toward their education. The top prizes for the most dedicated players included school uniforms, school shoes, and book bags while other players received school exercise books and pen sets. In addition, each coach brought up each and every player in front of the parents to say something about each one of them before being released back to their seats.

By attending prizegiving, parents were able to see the educational rewards that their child received from dedication, discipline and effort in the Uweza Soccer Program. In addition, they learned more about our organization and heard firsthand through speeches by players at the end, the impact the program was having on their children. All in all, the day was a great success!






More photos have been posted in a gallery here: http://uweza.org/gallery/mayprizegiving.html

Uweza Soccer Team Away Match

Our soccer kids have been training hard Monday through Sunday for the
last month during the school break of April where all school kids in
Kenya remain out of school. For the last week of their training
sessions before the start of school, Uweza provided funding for all of
our teams to attend a day of matches outside of Kibera to gain
exposure outside of the slums they live in. The kids traveled to
Githurai, roughly 45 minutes outside of the city and far from Kibera,
for a great day of fun, food and soccer.

We had around 130 kids in attendance and included all of our teams
from Under 8 to Under 18, and even our girls team. The kids had a ton
of fun as they met in the morning around 7am to begin traveling to the
match in two large buses, which were even equipped with tvs and music
for all to enjoy.

The kids had a full audience, as members of the community in Githurai
came to cheer on their home teams along the sidelines. Uweza players
had their own fanbase, as the girls and Under 8 teams did not have
matches, but instead came for moral support. The Uweza teams
performed well with our younger teams winning their matches! After the
games, the teams were treated to all they could eat lunch in the area
before returning to Kibera. The day ended with their return home to
Kibera—happy for their wins, full of food, and rested after their naps
on the bus on their way home.

Letters from Students

Our sponsored students write the most adorable letters to their sponsors. I wanted to take the time so share some excerpts from their most recent letters.


"I want to thank you for paying school fees, trip, books, pens, pencils, uniform, bags and my medical treatments. I hope God will help me to continue the work that you are doing. Will you come to visit us one day? Thank you!!"

"I have not received any letter from you. What's the reason? Can't you spare a few minutes once a month to write for me a letter? I am fine and wish you the same."

"I was number thirty-five with three hundred and ten marks. I was very happy and I have missed you very much. I want you to come."

"Greetings can be heard but a smile cannot be seen. How are you? I hope that you are doing well and fine and here in Kenya we are doing well and fine. I am going on well with studies in school and I was promoted to standard eight and I am doing my best to achieve my goal in my studies."

"I thank you for everything that I have been given, everything that I want. I like going to school better and home. I thank you for everything. Good bye. I love you all, even all sponsors."

Our sponsored students who are not yet able to write have made drawings of an elephant, a rat, several flowers, a car, a hut, an airplane, and a dog with a speech bubble saying "I think I like to tell you to be praying for me."

We still have several children (including Tifanny pictured below) in need of sponsors. If you are interested, check out http://www.uweza.org/sponsorship. If you are currently sponsoring a child, your sponsorship packet (including these letters) will be in the mail in a few weeks!

Brian Update

In late 2009, we wrote a series of posts about one of our sponsored students, Brian, who was 7 years old at the time and who had burned his leg in a fire caused by a knocked over stove.

Thanks to support we received, we were able to cover the costs of Brian's two month stay at the hospital. Almost a year and a half later we are happy to report that Brian's leg has healed successfully and he can now run, jump, and play just as he could before the accident. He is now in Class 2 at Olympic Primary School and walks to and from school and after-school tuition on his own every day.





Related Posts:
Brian Goes Home - December 2009
Brian Needs Your Help - October 2009

Uweza Girls Soccer

We have struggled for a while to create and maintain a girls soccer team with girls from Kibera. We have found that girls don't have the freedom to come to practice on the weekends like the boys do, as they are often busy helping with chores at home or their parents aren't as willing to let them walk freely through the slum. The girls also don't have clothes to play in and are less willing to play barefoot like the boys do without shoes.

To address these issues, we decided to recruit girls that attend Toi Primary School, the school where we rent our field to join the team so they could come and play right after school. We also created girls uniforms for them to wear every week and the girls take turns every week washing them. Our newest coach, Saidi, has taken on the task of being their coach.

We know that a lot of the kids, and likely many of the girls, come to soccer because of a lack of other fun, organized activities to participate in during their free time. We are looking forward to being able to offer a variety of activities that cater to all talents and interests once we build the community center.

There is now a team of about 15 to 20 dedicated girls that have been coming every week for the last five months. Our girls may not necessarily become the next women's professional soccer player (although you never know!), but they all have been having a great time and spend the entire practice giggling and smiling - that's what counts the most.






A photo gallery of the girls at practice has been posted on our photo page: www.uweza.org/framephoto.html.

Spotlight on International Women’s Day

March 8th is International Women’s Day—a time to reflect and motivate about the status of more than half of the world’s population. For Kenyan women and girls, considerable strides have been made in terms of health, education, safety, and government representation. Still, much remains to be done. In this blog I focus on women and girls in Kenya, on both their potential and their plight.

This video from the Nike Foundation about the “Girl Effect” is a reminder of the importance of interventions specifically for adolescent girls. Spaces like the Uweza Community Center provide a safe and empowering environment for girls to grow and flourish. As the video asks, will the revolution be led by a 12 year old girl?



Launched earlier this week, UN-Women is the new UN agency devoted to addressing issues of gender inequality. The Guardian UK collected messages from people around the world for UN-Women. See the photos here.

Kenya has the greatest percentage of children in secondary school of any country in sub-Saharan Africa—but girls are still lagging behind in rates of enrolment and completion. Read more about interventions to keep them in school here.

In previous blogs, I’ve written about obstetric fistula, a childbirth injury that is easily preventable with appropriate medical care at delivery. Fistula is practically non-existent in the Western world, but Kenyan women, particularly those who live in rural areas, remain vulnerable. Read RH RealityCheck’s ongoing series about preventing and repairing fistula here.

Being HIV-positive in Kenya can bring great stigma, which in turn may deter expectant mothers from seeking the treatment needed to ensure that their babies are born negative. Integration of HIV and maternal services—i.e., putting them under one roof—has had great success. Read more here.

In Africa, gathering firewood is generally the work of women and girls. At Dadaab refugee camp in northern Kenya, women and girls risk rape, assault, and death when they venture out for fuel. Check out this photo essay by the Women’s Refugee Commission about the dangers of gathering firewood in Dadaab.

Finally, Kenya’s own Wangari Maathai is the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. She continues to inspire with her courage and vision for a more democratic and just Kenya. Watch the preview for a documentary about her life here, and see if the film is screening near you anytime soon.