Nairobi - Dandora
Kenya is located on the equator in East Africa, just south of the Horn of Africa that juts out into the Indian Ocean. Kenya’s population of more than 30 million has suffered greatly in the past few years due to epidemics of malaria, cholera and AIDS and to a devastating East African drought that caused mass starvation across Kenya. As a result, over half of Kenya’s population is under the age of 15 years. Moreover, less than a quarter of Kenya’s land is arable. The inability of the land to support Kenya’s growing population is forcing people into cities in search of employment.

Nairobi is a modern city of more than 3 million people. Like the rest of the Africa, Nairobi is a place of contrasts. There are wealthy people in Nairobi, but they represent a very small percent of the population. Two out of three people in Nairobi live in slum areas. Most of those coming into the cities have limited education and vocational skills, and are only marginally employable, so they end up in slums like Dandora.

Dandora is situated about fifteen kilometers from the Nairobi City center in the Eastlands area. Eastlands comprise some of the most poverty stricken areas of Nairobi. Families live in homes made of sticks and mud, with no windows, water, electricity or sanitation. The roofs of the better homes are made of tin from flattened cans. Others are made of cardboard or sheets of dirty plastic. Six to eight people live in a room the size of an average American dining room. There is usually only one bed. Children sleep on gunny sacks on the ground. There is no money for proper nutrition or health care. Many children are forced to work long hours at hard, even dangerous jobs to help provide food for their families. The average daily income for a head of household can be anywhere from 20 to 50 Kenyan shillings…or in dollar terms, 15 to 35 cents per day.

Other social issues affecting Kenyan society today include escalating crime and disease, including HIV/AIDS, which continues to ravage the country’s population, with the latter claiming more than 700 lives everyday. Additional issues include drugs and substance abuse, increasing numbers of street families and orphaned children, and rising numbers of elderly who are also unable to provide for themselves. These issues are compounded by the near breakdown of governmental services and community structures.

Kenya Children’s Fund
Through God’s grace, Kenya Children’s Fund has been blessed with an opportunity to assist the most desperate children of Africa by meeting some of their most basic needs: education, nutrition and medical care at the Kinyago-Dandora Primary School.

Kinyago-Dandora Primary School (KDS): Kinyago-Dandora School (KDS) was started in the fall of 1987 by John and Babby Schwarz of Kenya Children’s Fund after a visit to the slum villages of Dandora. Feeling overwhelmed by the suffocating poverty and the plight of children living in such squalid conditions, the Schwarzes decided to begin a program that would provide education and nutrition for children living in Dandora.

Today, KDS has more than 500 students enrolled in pre-school and primary school classes (grades 1-8). Kenya Children’s Fund also supports 118 KDS graduates enrolled in secondary schools across Nairobi. The goal is to continue empowering children by providing quality education and health care by professionals who impart high personal values and faith based principles to children during the most important time. Academically, KDS is one of the top schools in its district often winning local music and sports competitions and was declared “Best Overall Community School” out of 35 schools in the Embakasi Division of Nairobi, Kenya. KDS also strives to serve the community of Dandora through innovative health care (AIDS awareness, family planning, etc.), micro-enterprise development, English literacy, and continuing education programs in the evenings.

KDS has a long history. It has continually identified itself with the poor in Dandora where poverty and hopelessness need not only be voiced out but can be seen and touched. KDS targets the children of the slums to give them a hope for the future by providing the message of hope in Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.

Our mission is to partner with the KCF at the Kinyago-Dandora Primary School and treat the children and families in one of Nairobi's poorest slum areas during our first week. Then move on to rural western Kenya for the next week to help a small clinic in the Nyamira District. Both adults and children will be treated at both sites. This is a very ambitious project medically and spiritually. Our heart in all this ministry is to see that all our patients are introduced to the "Great Physician" Jesus, our Lord and Savior by outreach at the clinic sites, and that new believers are incorporated into the local church.