By Eric Omwanda Nehemiah | Project Leader
Do it for Mathare Foundation is a project that is targetting companies and individuals to donate as little as $10. This funds will then be channeled to support activities and projects of Mathare Foundation. The other projects included Beyond Football Mathare Champions League, photography and Countless Moves. So far we have raised $20, special thanks to Robin for the donation.
Mathare Foundation had internal meetings before commencing food distribution exercise. The food stuffs were donated by our new partner KAPU Africa. The food stuffs that we received, has a monetary value of more than 1.5 million Kenya shillings. In the meeting we agreed that we will mostly allow family representative, football coaches and members of the community to come to collect the food stuff in the office. We also deployed delivery of the food to some of the residents of Mathare. We were issued with a go ahead via an email by the government of Kenya through the Secretariat of the Kenya COVID 19 Fund and the Deputy County Commissioner, Mathare Sub County.
The people who received the food stuffs included mostly people who we have worked with such as children, families, community organizations, football teams, our trainers among others. We ensured that at least that at least a family unit gets 1 packet of Soya Afric Porridge and 2 packets of Tendermercies. Some families got more than this since we have been working with them for many years and they were also in dire need.
We have been able to reach out to more than 1,500 families in Mathare slums and its environs. The refugees, muslims and children from other nationality such as Ethiopia and Somali have were also supported by us. We have 28 teams (10 boys and 18 girls). 4 of them belong to the refugee community. This refugees who were supported were 45 families which translates to about 225 people. We will be reaching out to more than 75 people soon. This was a good way of marketing both Mathare Foundation and KAPU Africa since some of the parents wanted to enroll their children into the program. We also received feedback that the Soya Afric Porridge which is also fortified is very sweet, thick and it contains healthy nutrients. Tendermercies is a very healthy and strong meal that keeps you going all day long according to some of the people who we gave the food.
Positive outcomes
Members of the community were very happy and this evident through the messages that they sent to us via WhatsApp or normal text and even phone call. We feel we have reached out to the people who were in need. We are truly inspired by such messages and this shows that a good cause will also be successful and receive some important support. We were able to address SDG 2 of Zero Hunger by providing food to the less-advantaged groups of people during this period-where access to food and other essential resources is a challenge. At this time Many families are facing hunger threats and through our interventions and other food drive interventions in the Mathare slums. We have been able to save thousands of lifes.
Encountered difficulties / negative outcomes
During the food distribution exercise, at times we saw people who were not supposed to benefit coming to the office for food stuffs. We explained to them that we already had a list of families/people who were supposed to benefit. Children started flocking into the office. We had to treat them differently because children are very harmless and honest. Hence we shared with majority of the children that came without invitation whatever little that we could offer. The community members who don’t get food stuffs from us will have a negative mind-set towards us. It is our role to make them understand that one we do not have any bad blood or ill intention with them. In fact, we have also opened our donors for discussions and we normally provide feedback. While we depend on fundraising to run the organisation, we hardly get any support on overhead costs. We have managed and nearly gotten by but this proved a challenge when we had rent arears We are working to ensure that we also secure some funding or % to our overhead cost I.e rent and other operational costs from our donors and well wishers. Conclusion In Fundraising, if are not transparent and accountable. This might lead to some of the people who have donated to have question marks in terms of our credibility. We intend to reach out to every donor and give feedback on how we utilized resources, food and funds sent to us. We are streamlining our operation and for sure there have been a lot of changes in our way of doing things.
NB
We will merge our online campaign into one so that we can concentrate fully. It is tiresome to have different campaigns. Mathare Foundation is also looking for an online Fundaiser. Kindly email us at info@matharefoundation.org or nehemiaheric@gmail.com
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