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.

Help us build the Uweza Community Center and Name One of the Rooms!

A community center is something that we have been thinking about for a long time and we hope in the next few months that it will become a reality.

From our website:

"The Uweza Community Center will provide an office, meeting and storage space for our current programs and will be a launching point for new community-run initiatives. The center will give Kibera residents, especially youth, a safe space to exchange ideas, explore talents and interests, and develop income generating activities that they enjoy.

Youth in Kibera very rarely have the opportunity to develop creatively.There is a lot of pressure for youth to perform well academically and school curriculum is largely focused around memorization and repitition. Talents and interest in the arts, theater, sports, and other activities may go untapped for the entirety of their lifetime because they lacked an avenue to explore these areas. The community center will allow youth to flourish in ways that will build self-esteem and enrich their lives.

Our Kenyan staff have continuously requested opportunities for income generation, observing that many youth are not able to finish school or turn to a life of drugs, crime, early pregnancy and marriage, and continue a cycle of poverty that has persisted for generations. The Community Center will allow a space for business and finance training, skills building, business mentorship, and small-business development.

Uweza is Swahili for "power, opportunity and capability" and we hope that the community center will encapsulate all of these words. We believe that what will truly fight poverty and empower the residents of Kibera is allowing them to find solutions and inspiration within themselves."

We are hoping to get the center up and running by April of this year but need a huge fundraising push to reach our goal.

Please check out www.uweza.org/communitycenter.html and make a donation. There is a donation tracking tool on the site and every little bit helps. As an added bonus, every person that donates online (even $1.00) to support the Uweza Community Center between now and March 15, 2011 will enter a random drawing to name one of the rooms in the center!

If you can't donate, share the site with family and friends and help us spread the word! Thank you!

Field Clean Up and Uniform Washing

We have recently been trying to get our players more actively engaged in the team in ways other than just showing up to practice and playing soccer. We want them to feel ownership of the team and to gain a sense of responsibility and pride in what they are doing.

In December, the players and coaches all participated in a clean-up of the field that they use every week. The field belongs to a school and the grass often grows long without being cut and trash is regularly dumped on the field. The coaches suggested that the teams start participating in regular field clean-ups so that they learn to take care of the place where they play (and earn the good graces of the school that allows us to use their field). It was also a bonding experience as all ages of players gathered together to pitch in. As a part of our points program, players were given extra points for participating.




More pictures of the field clean-up have been posted on our photo page.

Washing of our uniforms has formerly been taken care of by our coaches or by someone hired and paid to wash them. Our head coach suggested that we start allowing the older boys to wash the uniforms and earn something in return for their work. Starting in January, the older boys have been washing the uniforms every week in order to earn a new pair of shoes to play in. Each player is credited 200 Kenya Shillings (or about $2.50 USD) every time he washes. A pair of soccer shoes costs around 800-1,000 Kenya Shillings. After about a month and a half, many of the boys have washed enough times to earn a new pair of shoes that will be given to them this week. Most of the shoes that we purchase stay at the field and are used only during practices or matches but these shoes will be special to the boys as they have put in the work to earn ownership of them. Great for the boys and great for us as our uniforms are now always clean!

A Police Scandal, the Stigma of Twins, and Another Blog to Read!

2011 has barely begun and I am already overwhelmed by the news and developments emerging from Kenya. I learn something new every time I put together one of these blogs, and I hope that you do too.

Last week Kenyans were shocked when a video of police officers executing three men on a busy Nairobi street emerged. The video brings to stark light the ongoing problem of extrajudicial executions and abuses committed by the Kenyan police. For more information, read this detailed report by Human Rights Watch (which I wrote about in a previous blog) about police abuse in Kenya.

Launched last year, the Map Kibera Project aims to create the first map of one of the world’s largest slums. Local residents have been trained and equipped with GPS devices to survey the twelve “villages” that comprise Kibera. The project’s staff hopes that the map will be a powerful tool for residents to learn more about the health, security, education, and water/sanitation facilities available in their community.

While generally considered a blessing in Western cultures, the birth of twins is regarded as unlucky among certain African tribes, including some in Kenya. Women who bear twins are subject to scorn and stigma. Read the story of Gladys, who has given birth to 6 sets of twins and was abandoned by her husband and family as a result.

The healthcare of animals might seem frivolous in light of Kenya’s many public health challenges, but agricultural experts say that access to better medicines for livestock is crucial to reducing poverty. Read more about the launch of 150 veterinary supply stores throughout Kenya.

Finally, I hope that you will spend some time at the Mashada website, which is one of Kenya’s most popular blog spots and online discussion forums. I do not agree with all of the commentary, but it’s a great forum to learn more about the voices and opinions of Kenyans on current issues, many of which I’ve discussed in this blog.

The Value of Sponsorship

One of our parents, whose daughter was sponsored through Uweza and recently completed Class 8 in primary school wrote to thank us for the support. We were so touched by it that we wanted to share:

"I am glad to take this opportunity to express my deepest appreciation to you in person for the good support and achievements that you have made me experience since you stepped into our lives as a family. The face of our lives has greatly changed and the hopes of my daughter that she had, had been according to how you supported her fully. She was very low when she joined Standard 8 but because of your support, she managed to score to the standard of a provincial school. It was not easy and exams were not friendly to them [Class 8 students] and even the government was very keen on their results since they are the first class for the free primary education.

Thank you so, so much and may God bless you abundantly, I must congratulate you because my daughter's hopes have rested in you. Sometimes parents let their kids down, not because they want to but because they can't makes ends meet. It could have been very difficult for me since what they [my children] want, joining Form One [high school] is like an dream for me, which might have lead my daughter to just go and ask a neighbor to teach her how to mend dresses. But because you are there, she now has great hopes for joining Form One."

Due to the educational costs that he has saved through the sponsorship, this parent who runs a business repairing shoes, has been able to repair his home, purchase a bed for his children, provide regular meals, and support the education of his five other children, who all excel in school.

We have recently added many new students to our sponsorship program. If you are interested in sponsoring a child, please visit www.uweza.org/sponsorship for more information and to get started.

Cyrus Update

We have written in the past about Cyrus, an 18 year old from Kibera who went blind after consuming methylated spirit in 2008 when he was 16. Cyrus has made tremendous strides in his recovery in the past two years. Although he will permanently remain unable to see, he has adapted well to every day life and has high hopes of attending university and becoming a lawyer.

He is currently sponsored through Uweza and attending the Thika School for the Blind (pictured below), located about 45 minutes outside of Nairobi. He will finish Class 8 this year, graduate primary school and move on to a high school. He will be able to continue on to high school if his grades are high enough and can complete his studies in braille.

We went to visit Cyrus at his boarding school last Saturday and found him in good spirits and doing well. The school contains a computer learning center with over 30 computers where children are taught how to use computers with a visual impairment. All of the teachers were very complimentary of Cyrus, his performance in school, and his good nature. He is able to navigate the curved pathways of the school without his walking cane and has memorized every curve in the path and knows exactly where each building is at at all times.

Although it is extremely tragic for Cyrus to have lost his sight at such a young age, we are proud of him for making the best of the situation and grateful to everyone who has supported him.






Related posts:
Taking Cyrus to School - September 2009
Request for Assistance - October 2008

Kenya and Kibera Current Issues Series: A New Year Begins

Happy 2011, everyone! I’m looking forward to another year of blogging, and, more importantly, of supporting Uweza.

When in Kenya, I always admire the traditional emphasis on family and treating elders with respect. In this brief radio clip from the BBC, two children and their grandparents are interviewed about who cares for the elderly in Kenya. The avowed devotion of the children is heartwarming, but their grandfather’s remark about the contemporary “disintegration” of the traditional family structure is worth noting.

Drug-resistant tuberculosis poses a major challenge to public health in Kenya. The recent arrest and detention of two tuberculosis-stricken men, for the crime of not taking their medication, has sparked a debate about the intersection of public health and human rights. Does the greater national imperative of eliminating TB in Kenya take precedence over the individual rights of certain citizens? Read more here.

In a previous blog, I wrote about the announcement by the International Criminal Court (ICC) of the six main suspects in the post-election violence of 2007. One Kenyan activist has written an impassioned plea that following the ICC announcements, Kenya “needs a mirror,” in order to move forward and avoid future violence. His is a perspective worth reading more about here.

In the aftermath of the post-election violence, some Kenyans are turning to a seemingly unlikely activity—yoga—to recover from the trauma they have experienced. This video clip shows how yoga can be a powerful tool for peace-building among the tribes of Kenya.

Prime Minister Raila Odinga recently called for the arrest of those engaging in homosexuality in Kenya. In this video, the director of the Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya discusses the impact of this statement on the gay and lesbian community.

And, finally, on a more uplifting note: Kenya’s own Daddy Owen was the Winner of MTV Africa Award 2010 for Best Anglophone Artist. Enjoy the video for his song “Tobina” here: