Close readers will know of our support for ChallengeAid, and the progress they’ve made. This is an amazing charity helping children in the slums of Nairobi with access to education, as well as programs yielding other specific beneficial outcomes, such as protecting girls from FGM. The impact is absolutely enormous and it really resonates with our values here at Simwood.
I caught up with the ChallengeAid CEO last week and he made us an amazing offer – to single out one of the 53 schools and name it the “Simwood School of Hope”. This gave us something of a challenge: which one? They all do amazing work and we continue to support the charity as a whole, but they all do something subtly different, or rather over and above the impressive baseline.
I’m still processing some of the harrowing tales I was told, such as of the terminally ill girl who had lost her mother and had to be taken in by her local School of Hope, after surviving an attempted rape. No doubt, I was spared the worst, but it gave me a feel for the level of “above and beyond” they all do.
After sharing the options with the team, we’ve decided to choose what is currently the Billian School of Hope, in Mathare, Nairobi. As well as the learning branch which educates 58 teenagers daily, this school also provides daily care for 289 children with special needs, including 1 hospice-dependent child. I know first-hand how special needs children are so easily cast-aside and vulnerable, let alone in a context where fully-able children are forgotten – so this one hit hard. They have 4 caregivers and 4 therapists working within the care centre.
The school provides weekday academic reinforcement and holiday tutoring, all led by School of Hope alumni. They have a gamified learning platform where children can earn points redeemable for basic needs or household support – fostering both educational motivation and self-reliance. University-level alumni facilitate revision camps to aid high school level learners and the school is a model for educational innovation, combining digital learning, peer mentorship and strong community ties.
The care centre has structured physiotherapy sessions twice a week with ongoing daycare throughout the week. Developmental care is personalised and outreach sessions extend care out into the community. Crucially though, it provides a safe structured environment where children are cared for, enabling their parents to seek employment.
Recently, the school hosted a “Day of the Girl Child” event, engaging over 100 girls from other Schools of Hope in Mathare. They’ve led river cleanups and rubbish removal campaigns. On the care side, they’ve run parental workshops in basic physiotherapy to support children at home, home-based care strategies, first aid care (covering seizures, falls, burns and choking), and guidance on emotional support to build more resilient family units.
Outside of education and care, the school has an active music education program (guitar, drums and piano) and learners perform in a rap and singing group. There is a growing chess club that cultivates critical thinking, strategy and teamwork.
This really is an amazing institution that we’re truly humbled, if not brought to tears, to name the Simwood School of Hope.
To reiterate, while we look forward to the added intimacy of being involved with a specific school, we continue to support the charity as a whole. To that end, we wanted to let you know that we will not be sending out Christmas gifts to customers this year. We’re pretty sure our customers are well stocked on mugs and chocolates, so instead we are going to be making an additional donation to ChallengeAid of some chess sets – enough for every school to have several. They’ve managed to cultivate no less than 4 national chess champions, highlighting the enormous potential in these incredible kids. We hope you will all understand and support this change.
We’re truly humbled and grateful for this opportunity to help make a difference and will keep you updated as the Simwood School of Hope goes from strength to strength.
