Increasing forest cover through play in Nairobi

After a long month of planning and making key decisions in January. All G-K Divisions kicked off in the month of February. The Community Coaches were ready to deliver G-K sessions to more than 1500 Children in different communities. We are now looking forward to a great year filled with more sessions, fun and learning.

The school Calendar has adjusted to its original format and now it will easier to determine the long holidays and school program which will help to improve the quality of G-K sessions and the outcomes of the programs. Last but not least, G-K has summed up its divisions into 3 main brands moving forward that is Sports for social impact Consultancy, Women Up and Community Impact division. This might change after the completion of G-K Strategic plan in 2023.

On the other hand, We were privileged to have hosted our first kick and conserve tournament out of Nairobi working with High school students, this has never happened before. We worked with at least 60 students from Wareng High school and planted 100 seedlings that the students will be watering. The theme of the tournament was environmental justice and how young people and speak up against the environmental injustice.

“My feeling about kick and conserve is that, it is a new thing in town, I have never experienced something like this before, based on what has happened here today is that, our students really liked it, they were able to see the importance of sports and environmental conservation”. Teacher Robinson

We are looking forward to plan more than 1500 seedlings in a year not only in Kenya but in Africa in general, Thank you for your support.

I am happy to share with you how the last 3 months have been; I can confidently say that there has been a significant rise on the attendance of Children in all 5 schools where community impact program is taking place.

With just 2 months remaining until the end of 2022, Green-Kenya team is looking forward to wrapping up the year on a high note. The organization has reached more Children compared to previous months this year this was attributed to insurmountable challenges. We have a total of 1246 Children, out of these, 805 are boys and 441 are girls.

The majority of the participants reached by gender are still boys. The average attendance of participants in Environmental literacy and Community Impact program is 76%, women up is 59% while Football academy is 85% respectively.

Even though the overall number of girls is low, there has been a gradual increase in the number of girls attending Women Up sessions compared to 6 months ago

The Community coaches have conducted 125 sessions from 7th February to 31st October and spent 439 hours 45mins on field. The community Coaches are certain that the amount of work will reduce significance because of short term that is characterized by preparation for final exams.

As they year come to a close, we would to thank, the schools, parents, community Coaches and everyone who made sure that the sessions went on through their donation. Your support assisted to reach many Children through sports to teach and share our feelings in the most affectionate way. I would like to say thank you.

From next year, the schools calendar will go back to normal as it was in 2019 before Covid 19, we believe that we will have a more structured learning both on and off the field and Children will have more time to rest during school holidays compared to the last 2 years. We are looking forward to go on a roller costa with, please share this message of passion and dedication with your family and friends on behalf of all the Children who taking port in Green-Kenya programs.

I wish you happy holidays in advance, and remember don’t forget to rest and reflect

With passion and dedication

Titus Musyoka

This is a story of one of our  youth leader, but for the sake of  his privacy, the name has been aletred

My name is Tito,  aged 24 years . I was born  and  bred and brought up at Mukuru  Slums. I went to many primary schools before finishing primary level, this was due to financial strains from my mother who has been taking care of us alone since i knew myself, I completed high school in 2018.

 I played football from the age of 8 but I realized it’s my talent when I was 12 years and joined a local football team and from then on, I got obsessed with football. In the slums, playing football is like a rite of passage for boys in my hood and I still play up to date though not every day.

Currently I am working with Green-Kenya as a programs officer, we teach through play. I joined the organization in the year 2019 around Mid-July. My efforts, hard work and perseverance has not gone unnoticed and this made the organization to give me more responsibilities and a new position which I highly appreciate. I started as a youth leader then promoted to a Community impact coach(CIC) and now am the programs Officer. I lead one of the most active programs Called Community impact program(CIP) which takes place in Mukuru kwa Rueben and Njenga slums working with three primary schools.

My major roles are to make sure programs are active, we have the right people on the ground for every program, to conduct sessions, lead the team and make sure updates are written after every activity/program. My community needs a lot to reach a certain social development level because it’s a fact that this community among other slum communities has high levels of crime rates, Pollution (Air, water and land), teenage pregnancies, drug and substance abuse and so many social issues affecting the communities. For this reason, I decided to join Green-Kenya which I believe has the solutions to this, like education through fun.

Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world and the children are the best change agents. A child grows, talks, wears and behaves exactly how they’ve been taught. My colleagues and I are using CIP Methodology to bring long term solutions in this community and am proud to be a change agent.

This story is about a young girl who lives in one of the informal settlement where we conduct Community Impact program. For the sake of protecting her identity, I will call her Esther.

When our community coaches met with Esther, she was in class 5, about 11 years old, when I first entered their worn out iron sheet class room to introduce our programs to the Children, she was just quiet the whole time. After introducing the program, all the Children were excited except Esther, that caught my attention and that was the beginning of my curiosity about her and why she was quiet and withdrawn.

When the day to finally kick start the sessions, I was looking forward to see Esther, and to my surprised, she came to the field with the rest of the participants, we begun the session on a high note but Esther was still having stone face, I later realized that she was very aggressive and bitter with everyone, but more so with the boys, all the boys feared her, including the ones who were older than her.

After the sessions, I met with Esther’s teacher and I began to have a candid conversation about the girls and the teacher called to the side and dropped the bombshell to me. “You are correct David, said the teacher, the girl is very aggressive, and sometimes she is uncontrollable”. “Esther was a victim of rape for a long time, I got a bit more curious, and asked questions, the teacher said that the perpetrator was his father, who used to come home late at night drunk and he would rape the girl without the knowledge of the mother, apparently the mother was also abusing drugs and she did not care much how the Children were doing in schools or at home. Esther’s elder brother, who was in class 6, was also in the same mess, his father used to give him a bit of alcohol at night, and when he wakes up he was still drunk, this made him not to attend classes.

To be honest, I was angry with the whole story, and I decided to do what I can and help the two Children, I sat down with our Community Coaches and shared the story with them, we agreed to prepare football sessions to address the social issues that the duo were facing, we followed up with small steps by ensuring that they came to school in a daily basis, that way we would have a chance to involve them in the sessions.

Because they were in different classes, they attended sessions on different days, I ensured that Esther was in charge of attendance, ensuring that everyone was in the field on time, the games had more fun sessions, self-esteem sessions and after 3 months, we begun to see new Esther emerging out of her shell, being jovial, her grade improved, the smile came back, this moment made me emotional, even the teacher recognized it.

I was with Esther in March 2019, after just 4 sessions in the beginning of the year before Covid-19 was announced as global pandemic and my heart sunk, I thought that the perpetrator would take advantage of the situation and flush all the gains we made to the drain, to fast forward to 2022, I saw Esther again after 2 years and she was glowing, she was clean and talkative. Something interesting happened, during Covid-19, there were no places that their parents would get cheap alcohol or other drugs, there was a country wide curfew that started from 7:am to 5:am, everybody was looking forward to work and protect their health.

Links:

• Community Impact program website link

 Time really flies, we are in the festive session and on behalf of the Green-Kenya team we would like to wish you happy holidays in advance.

In the past 3 months, we have had memorable moments during the on field sessions with Children in different parts of Mukuru informal settlement, our community Coaches have worked tirelessly to keep Children safe while helping them to relieve stressful moments as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Many students have not yet reported back in schools because of either school fees or because the family relocated to a rural home. We have had the lowest number of participants who took part in our programs ever recorded in the past 4 years. There has been a significant drop in the number of girls who attend the sessions which is a worrying reality.

“It is challenging to keep these Children in school without enough food that was there before and enough teachers, even though it is more safe to keep them here than at home when their parents are not around during the day” said one of the teachers.  

As if this situation was not enough, the government through the county government came with bulldozers very early in the morning to demolish a huge part of the informal settlement which inhabits around 700,000 people with a court order. As a result of these occurrences, Green-Kenya convened a special meeting with the leadership of Mukuru kwa Ruben to discuss the security of the Children, their parents and property.

After a long discussion, Our community Coaches in consultation with the Green-Kenya committee team agreed to stop all football sessions in Mukuru community. Most of the Children who have been affected by the demolition participate in our programs. Some of their parents had to seek refuge in the community field where we conduct football sessions. “I think it is not safe for Children to go to the field at this moment because there are riots, the residents are demonstrating against the demolition, let their parents settle first”  said Joseph Kip’ ngame Chairman Mukuru Kwa Ruben, Wesinya community.

The coaches are still visiting the Schools to talk to few Children who are present and assuring them that football sessions will be back after the holidays are over. The demolition has been stopped to give people time to look for somewhere to relocate. We are thankful that our participants are safe, though there were fatalities during the demolition. The Covid-19 infection is slowly going down, there is hope that infection rate will be controlled with the availability of vaccines in the country. The government of Kenya through the ministry of health have directed that no one will receive government services without being inoculated.