The Flourish Foundation
We support two fantastic, locally initiated programmes in the slum districts of Nairobi, Kenya.
Kibera Girls Soccer Academy
Kibera Girls Soccers Academy provides free secondary education for young women from the poorest of families in Kibera, one of the largest slums in Africa.
Our Role
Tim is a Member of the School’s Board of Directors. We support the professional development of the teaching staff and leadership team.
Background
In Kenya, there is no free secondary education. This means that children from the poorest families have little hope of developing skills that could free them from a life of poverty.
Kibera Girls Soccer Academy (KGSA) was founded to provide free secondary education to young women in Kibera. It receives no government funding and is entirely dependent of voluntary donations.
The staff are residents of Kibera, too. They are enthusiastically committed to enable a brighter future for young women in their community, but have little or no formal training.
While working for Kenya Airways during 2009-10, Tim worked at the school running enterprise learning projects and professional development workshops for the teaching staff. He is a member of the school’s Board of Directors.
Facts about Kibera
- Kibera is one of the largest slums in Africa.
- Overcrowding has led to high levels of tuberculosis, respiratory infections, whooping cough, malaria, urban dengue and yellow fever. There are no government clinics or hospitals.
- The average size of a house in Kibera is 12 feet x 12 feet. They are built with mud walls, layered with concrete, a tin roof and dirt or concrete floor. The average house has up to 8 or more people living there.
- In most of Kibera, there are no toilet facilities. One latrine is shared by up to 50 houses in the area. Once full, young boys are employed to empty the latrine and take the sludge to the river.
- Only around 20% of Kibera has electricity.
- Ninety percent of the residents living in Kibera are below the poverty line with an average income per person of forty-five shillings a day, which is roughly 30 pence.
- Kibera, like many urban slums throughout the world, has been declared an “illegal settlement” by their government. Such a declaration removes all formal recognition of the slum, allowing the government to abandon any responsibility over the area.
- The government owns all of the land of Kibera. 10% of the people are home-owners and they sub-let the houses they own. All other residents have no tenant rights.
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Kito International
Kito International provides training and mentoring to assist young people set up their own small enterprise, make a living and get out of poverty.
Our Role
Tim is a Member of the Kito’s Board of Directors. We support the design and delivery of programmes for Kito’s trainees.
Background
There are an estimated 60,000 young men and women living on the streets in Nairobi. Locally known as ‘street boys’ and ‘street girls,’ their lives are focused on survival.
They survive by begging for food and earning small tips for carrying shopping and luggage and washing cars. They sleep rough and easily fall into the habits of glue-sniffing, drug-taking, crime and prostitution.
By chance, Tim met Wiclif Otieno, the founder of Kito and a former street boy who had made his way out of homelessness by creating a small enterprise that manufactured paper bags from eco-friendly re-cycled paper. He is now employing other street boys in his small business and they too are beginning to see an alternative better life is realistically within their reach.
Kito International
Street youth come from socially disadvantaged circumstances often well beyond their own control. Many are orphans or have been forced away from their family homes for economic reasons. With no money for education, they drop out of school and fail to obtain the basic qualifications required for employment. They are truly marginalized to the edge of society with little opportunity to develop and play a productive part in it.
The success of the program is measured ultimately by the creation of a sustainable enterprise that can support the financial needs of the former street youths running it. Identifying entrepreneurial ideas and turning them into practical businesses is a notorious challenge for anyone and it is this area that Tim is helping Wiclif and his colleagues.
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Visit Kito International
Feedback
Kito International
‘Tim Coburn has been a force behind my motivation. His work to support the less fortunate in Kenya by giving his time and resources is something I cannot overestimate. Tim volunteered with Junior Achievement Kenya to help the girls in the informal settlement of Kibera Girls Soccer Academy nurture their journalism skills. He helped them publish the first issue of the Shedders magazine early 2010.’
‘At the same time he has been advising and mentoring me as I prepared to start Kito International to help street youths acquire business skills that would help them set up and run successful micro-enterprises and achieve a life of self sufficiency and leave the streets forever.’
‘What is so amazing about Tim is his ability to connect so well with the youths who were still on the streets at the base where I was. He wants to actually help Kito to start a program for youths on the streets who do not make it to join the main Kito program. Tim has not only provided moral support to Kito and Kibera Girls Soccer Academy but also participated in the fundraising walk in the UK to raise funds to support the two organizations through Flourish Foundation.’
‘Tim has a big heart for the less fortunate and also is really my motivator. His advice and mentoring has been invaluable in enabling me to run Kito and cope with the complexities associated with running a non profit.
‘Thank you so much for giving hope to the hopeless in Kenya.’
Wiclif Otieno
Director, Kito International, Kenya
June, 2010
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