Our School is faced with great Dilemma
PBF through the local community based organization One World Network (OWN) supports young boys and girls attending an informal school in the middle of a slum.
These children come from single parent families and many of them are totally orphans living with distant relatives and well wishers. PBF over the years has provided the Center with monthly funds for Uji, (porridge) made from maize floor. This simple drink is served before midday to cover for breakfast and lunch. This meal is important because many of these children sleep hungry at home and only depend on this Uji.
The school is built with tin sheets, boxes and wood next to a river. There are no public toilets in the area and the children have to walk far away to get toilets or help themselves near the river. They have no playground either.
With the recent rains and floods, the few classrooms available were carried away by flood waters and currently the many of these children are out of school.
PBF funded container classrooms during covid. We put them on a piece of land outside Mathare and put at least 40 children there but it became difficult to transport the children there every morning because the van that we acquired for transport broke down. Apart from this the children could not make it to the school in time because of the distance and other logistical challenges. We constructed a few more cartons and tin structures in the Mathare site and they continued their studies until a few months ago when the temporary classrooms we swept away by floods.
Currently we are in a dilemma. We do not know what to do as far as classrooms, desks and stationary are concerned. We however continue to provide the all-important Uji to the children even if they do not attend classes.
These children and their families need help but as PBF we are currently only able to do the Uji based on our current capacity .
PBF Humanitarian Aid in Mathare slums of Nairobi (youtube) <click here>
Dan
for PBF