Since 2020 the small, family-run charity, Kidogo Kids, has been establishing programmes for children and young women based in a slum area of Nairobi, Kenya.
The slum community has many social problems and the lack of financial security along with the attitudes of men towards women means that often young girls do not receive a full education and are forced into begging or prostitution. Working closely with community leaders, Kidogo Kids aims to break this cycle by raising the aspirations of young girls and improving living standards for women and their families.
The Beatrice Gilmore Charitable Trust is providing three-year funding for the Tumaini Project to support 30 of the most vulnerable young girls so that they can complete secondary education and also to empower 60 young women by giving them necessary training to start their own small businesses, so that they can support their families. The project will also train two group leaders in the skills needed to provide such support as is needed to the other beneficiaries. This is intended to result in fewer women turning to prostitution and confident empowered women making decisions for themselves and no longer feeling inferior and vulnerable.
The supported school-age girls work as a group and are learning to support each other, working together and sharing experiences; they meet in a safe place in the school compound and learn new skills including sewing and computer classes. All are doing well and are near the top of their year groups.
Older girls have been placed on training courses (eg hairdressing, cookery, beauty). However, others are so deeply troubled that Tumaini is working to help them get to a place where they are well and stable enough to join one of the vocational courses and get benefit from it.