Edoovillage #2334 - Kenya, Nairobi: Mathare Foundation

Mathare Foundation and Zama Zama Dance and Development Centre) intend to create a space that can be converted into a digital learning centre where schools in the slums can each access the spaces at different times and get free lessons on basic computer skills as well as improve their capability to learn online and compete with other properly established schools for the rich and the middle class that has all the necessary resources that support learning.
2. Project Description - Please explain about your project and how you will use the laptops (*):
This project is a collaboration between the Mathare Foundation, Zama Zama Dance and Development Centre, and the Resolution Project. We aim at establishing a joint initiative through which we shall create a digital learning center where children from the slum schools can have shared access to computer education so they can enhance their academic skills.
Mathare Foundation is a community based organization that was registered in 2013. We provide educational programs and mentorship for disadvantaged youth in the Mathare slums of Nairobi, Kenya. We offer hands-on training and technical workshops in photography, film production, performing arts (music and dance), sports, and stay in school programs, young boys and girls from Mathare.
Mathare is a settlement of roughly 500,000 people where the vast majority of the population lives under the poverty index, in houses of mud and corrugated iron sheet. Mathare is the oldest slum in Nairobi and lacks basic services like sanitation, clean water, electricity, and passable roads. As in many impoverished areas, children and teens from Mathare are at incredible risk for unplanned pregnancies, involvement in drugs and alcohol, crime, prostitution, and gangs.
Our programmes are critical in offering a safe respite for children ages 6-15 years and youth of ages 17 to 25 years where they can uncover their talents and realize their potential to become young leaders in their communities and beyond.
IMPACT
(i) Reach out to approximately 1,000,000 people in Mathare slums and beyond through our different programs and event.
(ii) 5,000 young people (children and youth) skills improved in photography, football and performing arts programs.
(iii) About 100 children supported with full and partial scholarship to attend primary and secondary schools.
(iv) Improved livelihood for more than 1,000 people.
Eric Omwanda Nehemiah is the brainchild and the Executive Director of Mathare Foundation who has benefited from youth programs during their adolescence in Mathare and directly understand the immense impact programs such as Mathare Foundation have on young people positive trajectory for the future. Eric Omwanda Nehemiah is an award winning young leader. Eric has won the following awards: Commonwealth Youth Worker Award for Africa region, Resolution Fellowship Project Recipient, Caroline Mutoko Scholarship to attend One Young World, Media and Information Literacy Award by UNESCO.
The Mathare Foundation is looking for thoughtful, compassionate partners to help us achieve our highest ambitions, where Mathare’s youth have ample opportunities to unlock their limitless potential; where they not only have a chance to dream but also see their dreams realized.
Zama Zama Dance and Development Centre

Zama Zama Dance and Development Centre is a community development organisation that started with use of dance as a tool to engender broad socio‐economic development but later embraced other forms of creative approaches, performing arts and subsidiary sports activities, while also effecting positive social change. Founded in 2012 in the Mathare area which is one of Africa’s largest and poorest slums, Zama Zama Dance and Development Centre is among the leading organizations in linking of dance, performing arts, movement games and other creative approaches such as digital story telling with social improvement and community development activities such as slum garbage clean-ups, environmental improvement, Water sanitation and Hygiene Awareness activities, menstrual hygiene awareness, Mental Health awareness and HIV/AIDs prevention. Today over 250 children and youth participate in the Zama Zama self help dance, performing arts and subsidiary sporting and movement games activities, slum clean up, AIDS prevention, leadership training programs and other community development activities

Zama Zama Dance and Development Centre also works in partnership with 5 schools from the slums and initiates schools’ Dance, sports and performing arts clubs that are managed by Zama Zama trained instructors. Through the partnership with schools, volunteers from Zama Zama Dance and Development Centre can also introduce lessons for foreign languages or supplement by teaching other curriculum sessions such as Mathematics, English or any other subject as most of this slum schools lack enough teachers. It is also in the schools’ program that we create awareness to the teachers and learners on mental health and children rights. This partnership with schools also helps us identify needy and vulnerable children that may need psychosocial and academic support.

The Resolution Project
The Resolution Project was founded by a group of young professionals who had attended youth leadership summits as university students and had been frustrated with being the “leaders of tomorrow.” Resolution’s founders believe that university students have the energy, idealism and will to solve some of the world’s most persistent and challenging problems, and should be leading today.
Resolution was founded in 2007 to develop and empower young leaders so they can pursue socially responsible solutions to issues affecting communities around the world. We designed our Social Venture Challenge (“SVC”) to be an inspiring call to action for university students with an idea for a social venture and we created the Resolution Fellowship to be an ecosystem of support to help them implement their idea and develop as socially responsible leaders.
Today, there are over 600 Resolution Fellows on six continents working on ventures addressing issues ranging from basic needs, food, development, education, energy and the environment, health and wellness, equality and empowerment, and humanitarian relief. Among those is Eric Nehemiah, who is also the Founder of the Mathare Foundation, and we are proud to support him on this initiative.
MODEL
Resolution is dedicated to fostering youth leadership development around the world through collaborative social entrepreneurship. We inspire young changemakers through our proven model of Social Venture Challenges and Resolution Fellowships, we:
Partner with youth conferences and scholar programs in the United States and around the world.
Recruit undergraduate students to propose social ventures in our multi-stage Social Venture Challenge.
Award Resolution Fellowships to compelling young leaders with the most promising social venture proposals.
Support our Fellows with seed funding, hands-on mentorship, access to pro bono resources, and a community of like-minded peers.
Connect them with opportunities to grow their ventures, their careers, and their impact through partner organizations.
Resolution Project will play a key role in receiving and sending the 40 computers to Kenya that will be used by the pupils in the schools that Mathare Foundation and Zama Zama Dance and Development Center partner with. These students live in poverty, and the opportunity to access these devices and participate in this programming will transform what is possible for them.
The laptops will be used to create a shared digital learning centre for schools in the Mathare slums. The centre shall be a shared resource among 10 schools and each school shall be able to access the centre at different intervals. This shall be made possible through a time table that will be properly crafted and shared with the different schools.
https://www.facebook.com/MathareFoundation