Training of Informal School Teachers

In this most difficult of times with the COVID19 pandemic - the Schools of Hope have been shut down as have all Government Schools in Kenya. The programme will spring back to life as soon as the shut down is relaxed.People in the slums have been instructed to stay at home but for a typically averaage family of 5 in a 3' x 3' schack in a slum this is just not realistic. Additionally most people do not have savings so the idea of not working ultimately means starving. This is the situation in which hundreds of thousands have to exist - this is their reality.

The Supervisors are in communication with ChallengeAid but at this moment in time there is not much that can be done. What does emerge from the situation is the need to get this training back on track as soon as we are able to cascade the learning to the young people who rely on the SoH's to fulfil their aspirations and turn them into a reality.

This is a letter from Kibera regarding the Covid 19 Crisis reflecting life in the Informal Slum Settlement by a resident -

We had all assumed that things would return to normal and that a cure would soon be found for Corona virus but this did not happen. More people lost their jobs and the government placed a 7pm curfew in Nairobi. There was even talk of a lockdown, we were told a lockdown would be an order for all people to stay indoors. We were told this had been done in Europe and South Africa. Then reports reached us that in Europe people were dying by the thousands and it had become even impossible to bury them in a decent manner. It sounded like the end of the world was near. The government even called for a day of national prayer !

Desperate times call for extreme measures, since there was not enough money for feeding the children, jobs were not available in the city and the Corona virus seemed to affect people in Nairobi more. Most families hurriedly organized to send their children and the women to their rural homes but then we were also

told that we would be spreading the disease by doing this. It is an impossible situation.

Most of us who have no rural homes to go to; sit in our houses which are essentially one room shacks of about 10’x10’. It’s almost impossible for one person to spend a whole day inside of a shack in a slum let alone a family of 5. Most of us now spend the day waiting for a Good Samaritan to drop by with a bag of food; when food is available we share it with our neighbours who have none. When there is a rumour that there may be a charitable donation of food from an NGO into the slum that almost makes matters worse as it creates a stampede and all the good work that has been done by social distancing is ruined. Please don’t judge us harshly though because if you and your family haven’t eaten for days it is very difficult to grab the opportunity. On the bad days when there is nothing to be eaten, we just sleep with the hope that tomorrow will be a better day !