Increasing forest cover through play in Nairobi

We are conducting some of the last programs before the holiday kicks in and I thought it is important to retrospect some of the highlights that has happened so far.

Green-Kenya began its 2019 program on 5th February with Community Impact Programs (CIP) in Mukuru community schools and shauri moyo respectively. There were 4 community schools participating in CIP.

Out of the Community Impact program, Green-Kenya has been able to come up with 7 other programs that use football as a tool to address different social issues in the communit.  These programs are Kick and conserve concept, Youth league, Football academy, Corporate and Community team building, Sports for social Impact Consultancy, Wasichana Juu and Leadership and Development.

Out of the 8 programs, there are 6 created exclusively for the youth and 2 that focus on both adults and youth.

Over the course of 11 months, each program has reached a significant number of both youths and adults in different communities in Nairobi, Mogotio, Mbita and  Kisumu ( all in Kenya ) as well as Lilongwe in Malawi.

We have been able to reach: 324 Adults (Teachers and Coaches), 2,468 Girls and 2,465 Boys

Safeguarding the rights of all children taking part in our programs is very important for the Green - Kenya community. As such, Green - Kenya has made an effort to work with various groups and partners that take part in our programs to educate them and create awareness on the importance of protecting children’s rights. Such groups include: physical education teachers, local coaches who aspire to become sports for social impact coaches and young mothers who are now sports mentors working with adolescent girls in Nairobi’s informal settlements

A follow up on Solomon...

Out of the 2465 boys we have managed to reach and impact, is one of my good friends who, for the sake of protecting his identity, I refer to as Solomon. Solomon is a resident of Mukuru community. He came to the field when we were doing the last sessions before the schools closed for the long holidays. We had a short conversation and it is then that I realized that his younger sister had joined school but Solomon wasn’t as lucky.

We have been unsuccessful in trying to reach out to his mother to find out the cause of this unfortunate situation but, in the meanwhile ,we as Green - Kenya community agreed to  try everything possible in our capacity to see to it  that Solomon goes back to school next year and enjoy his right for education.

Schools have been on holiday for the last four weeks as per the government of Kenya school calendar and we have been having series of meetings amongst ourselves to prepare for the last term of the year.

As the schools reopen, I am looking forward to meet with a boy who has become one of my best friend in Mukuru, I will call him Solomon for the sake of protecting his identity. When I visited his school for the first time, Solomon was not friendly to his class mate, some of his class mates were actually making fun of him, he never used to come to our sessions, he used to remain outside the classroom isolated.

I came to know about Solomon’s predicament when I went to remind his teacher about the time the Children should come for the session. I greeted him but he was not receptive as other Children were and that caught my attention, I enquire about him from his class teacher, but the female teacher had no clue about what was wrong with Solomon but she mentioned that his parents are having domestic violence.

The next day I insisted that we go with Solomon to the field and I involved him in the session, he played but he was not that involved, I decided to keep him neat me in the circle so that he would not feel with drawn, According to the teacher, Solomon never used to do anything in class and he was always fearful.

I tagged alomg with Solomon and the story has now changed, Its now four months down line and Solomon has completely transformed, he is laughing to the jokes from his peers, something that never used to happen and he one time did a shout,  a signature tune to finish the session on a high note.

The last time I talked with her teacher about Solom’s progress, she told me that Solomon did not sit for second term exams,that worries me. One of the assignments that I have when the schools will be reopened will be to find out where is my friend; I will definitely visit his home through the class teacher. I will keep you posted about my findings in the next report…Asante sana /Thank you very much for being the strength beneath our wings.