Kenya, 10 June 2020. There are 2989 confirmed infections officially registered. The lockdown of the last weeks had many consequences: many informal jobs got lost. Lack of money, lack of means to protect themselves, more people suffering from hunger. Children are begging and who is not successful looks for food in the garbage places.

Launch of a hygiene program includes also children

It’s a project, led by our social entrepreneurial partner, the Mukuru Aganza film academy in collaboration with UHAI365 and Making More Health

The Mukuru Aganza film academy is running several activities to empower the youth. The social enterprise is engaging for a few years now in Nairobi under the lead of Francis Gikufu. It was also him helping Kenyan students to experience and learn more about life in the slums. During our youth hackethon. Eight months ago.

Because the only thing that counts is DOing

Now the winning students group of our Venture4change hackathon program has founded a NGO, under the name UHAI365. Originally, they have started to develop a hygiene game for school children in the slums. Now, the project addresses more children, more people. It’s getting bigger and more impactful. Hands on. And in collaboration with others.

Here is how they describe it:

“Life appears normal in the Mukuru slums. Mostly normal. It is that children are not in school due to the Covid19 pandemic. The Ministry of Health keeps stressing on the importance of wearing masks, washing hands frequently and staying at home. These safety measures though good, are certainly a foreign language in the slum.
Children are seen busy playing, crisscrossing, and actively engaged within the narrow streets on the slum. Some children – due to hunger – will beg for food inside and outside the slum. Those not being lucky will be seen on the garbage sites looking for something to eat. Yes! It is this hard despite the slum being minutes away from the center of Kenya’s capital, Nairobi.

Safety measures: a foreign language

We are excited as a project is a collaborative effort to address hygiene and sensitize the community on Covid19.
These efforts will include training and issuing the community with Masks, LiquidSoap, and Sanitizers. We are targeting over 2000 Households, 150 institutions, and among others, children, disabled, and most vulnerable in the community.”