Shining Hope for Communities (SHOFCO) champions gender equality and combats urban poverty by linking free education for girls to holistic community services. We are changing the lives of thousands in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya through a comprehensive approach to the challenges of urban poverty.
Girls in Kibera face tremendous obstacles to securing an education and protecting their physical and emotional health. Beyond the daily hardship of life in extreme poverty, girls also face horrific rates of sexual assault and incest, and lack access to basic needs like food, shoes, clothing, and sanitary napkins. We are committed to providing education to young girls, as well as skills training and opportunities for teenage girls who were unfortunately denied education in their youth.
The Kibera School for Girls is linked to essential social services available to all including a health clinic, community empowerment programs, sanitation facilities, and Kibera's largest clean water point. By investing in health and economic success through a school for girls we demonstrate that benefiting women benefits the entire community-improving gender equality while providing services that are transforming the lives of all Kiberans.
Our Shining Girls program participants were 80% less likely to be victims of sexual abuse than their peers. Our holistic approach has successfully raised standards of living, improved health indicators, increased household incomes, and decreased under-five mortality, malnutrition and instances of gender violence. With your help, we can provide these services to hundreds more girls in the Kibera slum.
This project has provided additional documentation in a XLSX file (projdoc.xlsx).
