Funds Appeal for a School in Mathare Slums

Living conditions in the Mathare slum are extremely poor. In addition to high infant mortality, the risk of mothers dying from complications of childbirth is very high. Although primary education has been free in Kenya since 2003, the illiteracy rate among the residents of Mathare Valley is unusually high. The children often have to contribute to the family’s livelihood, for example by collecting and selling garbage, or they are AIDS orphans and have to care for younger siblings.

People live in this area in tightly packed, windowless shacks. The shacks are made of corrugated iron or wood and measure an average of two-by-two meters; they typically house around ten people. The slum has no paved roads and no infrastructure, meaning no water or electricity lines and no sewage system. During the rainy season, the dwellings are submerged in dirt and mud. The floods often sweep away not only the homes but also residents, especially children. The risk of disease outbreaks is high during this time.

On the very edge of the slum live the poorest of the poor in makeshift shelters made of cardboard boxes. The residents of Mathare thus lead lives under the most difficult circumstances. Mathare is a slum of over 1 million people located in the heart of Nairobi. It is a place where hundreds of thousands of parents raise their children, sometimes without access to education and proper sanitation facilities. When you walk through the streets of Mathare, you can feel the slum buzzing with life. There are colors everywhere, sprawled across buildings, walls, and stands full of vegetables along its streets. Each piece of land is utilized to the fullest, neighbors literally sharing walls, bathrooms, and water faucets at times.

It is difficult to comprehend the magnitude of Mathare. The sheer number of people, houses, animals, and a range of other living things that call the urban community home. If you considered its land area alone, it would be unimaginable how over 1 million people could call this small space home, but in Nairobi, it is possible. Though the conditions may not be ideal, the sense of community is strong.

Continued PBF Support in Mathare
The Page Vision School is a community-run school with an incredible future ahead. When you visit the school, the entrance begins with a steep stairway seemingly created from mounds of dirt and plastic bags. Luckily the rain doesn’t come often in Nairobi or the school would seemingly be washed away into the river valley. And yet, its setting is lively, crafty, and thought out. With a couple of mud walled structures, rented and used as classrooms , its founder, Paul Onyach  has managed to create a school where hundreds of students can receive an otherwise unattainable primary school education. PBF has supported this school for the past 10 years by providing funds for the feeding program which in itself is the main reason children come to this school.

Schools in Mathare often pop up out of pure necessity. They are scarce, under-resourced, and teachers are often untrained, but the children’s education remains the priority and driving force of all involved. Families can’t afford public institutions, let alone private schools, so community driven schools are created to fill the need. Mothers become teachers, and their children begin to receive essential lessons for their future. Even with tattered uniforms, empty stomachs, a few too many students in each room, and a chalkboard that has been erased far too many times, the students persevere for their education, and the parents and teachers who are mostly volunteers make sacrifices to contribute to it. For a mere $30 a month, the mothers, sisters, aunts, and young women of the community have become teachers. The students’ parents also do their best to contribute, and if they can’t, then the school allows them to pay gradually as they can.

There’s no library at Mathare School and the textbooks are limited, but the children’s joy in learning remains apparent. They use their imagination to learn about people and places that seem like fantasies to their curious minds, and their hopes and dreams encourage them to reach for a better life. The children’s smiles are contagious. They don’t attention the noise in the streets or the shaking of the floor when someone walks across the makeshift hallway outside their classroom door. There isn’t a playground for the children to play on in the afternoons or a field where they can learn how to play sports or run off their energy; there isn’t even a room big enough for all the students to assemble for announcements or important events. But, none of this matters because the essential components of learning are present: adults with a desire to teach and children with a desire to learn. However, don’t they deserve even more?

PBF has supported Page Vision with Feeding, Desks and Sanitary Pads for almost 10 years now. This is really commendable and life changing chance for these Children who are trapped in perpetual poverty cycle of their parents and the community of Mathare.

Appeal for support to acquire space for classrooms
I would wish to present their situation and possible solution to their problem once again to PBF. We all have witnessed the struggle these innocent children undergo in the pursuit of their education in the midst of absolute abject poverty and hopelessness of the people of Mathare.

I have used my time in Nairobi in the month of February to seek possible solution. The place from where they currently operate is a wetland next to Nairobi River and there is no chance to build anything permanent.

These children live with their parents and they need a basic environment to study not necessarily where they are now but a NEARBY (walking distance) from their parents’ homes.

There are pieces of land on sale  1.5 kilometer away. I would implore PBF family to consider helping Paul and the Kenya PBF team to acquire this land for starters. We may not guarantee the construction of classrooms on it but having the safe approved settlement land would be the strongest foundation for the school to continue providing the basic/primary education it does to these children of Mathare.

The land is not cheap because it is in a high-density settlement area. 2 pieces of 50×100 ft is being sold for $ 60,000.

Let us think about these children as we do for other deserving beneficiaries elsewhere.

Thank you.

Dan Amolo
For PBF