Umande Trust

Easily spottable from any matatu driving in on the gravel entrance to Kibera, the Umande Trust building and attached bio-centre stands three stories tall overlooking a busy road filled with people, umbrellas, shops, and cars. While the top two floors of the building is office space, the bottom floor is a complete bio-centre with 4 toilets on each side and 2 showers in total. This bio-centre also comes with a fridge filled with soda for passersby who may want a treat. The caretaker of this bio-centre is Stell a, a 29 year old woman with three children at home. This is Stella’s second month working at the bio-centre here and in her first mont h here says that she considers her job fair.  Stella spends most of her day sitting on a white plastic chair outside of the steps of the bio-centre, collecting the five shilling fair for using the toilet and the fifty shilling fair to get a soda. She also cleans the bio-centre two to three times per day. While she is not sure of the...

On March 9th, Umande was able to send representatives to the Ngaru Girls High School in Kerugoya, an all girls boarding school a little over two hours from Nairobi. The facilities here (a bio-digester 84m3, renovated 20 toilets, biogas piping and burners) were built last fall and opened for use since November 2016. As one of the several boarding schools utilizing the bio-centers they were pleased to see the facilities up and running efficiently. Mikayla, our new intern, and Gladys, our sanitation marketer, were able to tour the property and meet with two kitchen staff members, Muthi and Mwaii, the school nurse, Pascaline, and a member of the cleaning staff, Margaret. The Umande Team were impressed with the overall cleanliness of the toilets and the kitchen and the excellent conditions the infrastructure installed by the organization were in. Through an open conversation with the staff members they were able to gather information on the success and the possible future improveme...

Today Umande held the first of many meetings for the Women's Voices project champions. The 20 women champions met with some of the Umande staff at the Harlequins Suites Hotel. The meeting started by having all the women introduce themselves, followed by an introduction of Umande Trust, and some of the other projects that the organization is working on. After the introductions, each woman was given a questionnaire which asked questions about their local government, how involved the women have been in the local government in the past, and the positive and negative aspects of their local government. After reading the questionnaires it was clear that most of the women in the room felt like they did not have a voice in their community, or no one was listening. That is why this program, Women's Voices ICT Choices is so important for women in the community. This project teaches and encourages women to share their thoughts and ideas and gives them leadership roles within their own com...

Umande Trust is in the process of launching a new project that aims to increase the representation of Women's voices when making decisions about their own communities, specifically within Kibera. To do this, Women Champions will be selected from the community, and these women will be trained to be liaisons between local governments and the community they are representing. The Women Champions will provide other women in the community with relevant information and facilitate group discussions on the issues women want to discuss and share ideas about. On Friday, October 28th a meeting was held at the Tosha One biocenter in Kibera to discuss the Women's Voices ICT Choices project and specifically, how to choose the women champions. Project representatives from Umande Trust lead the meeting, and it was attended by around 30 community members and representatives from other local organizations. At the meeting, they discussed the project, and who exactly the women champions would be....

Yesterday, October 15th, schools and organizations in various countries around the world celebrated Global Handwashing Day.  This campaign is dedicated to increasing awareness of the importance of proper hand washing with soap and other basic hygiene practices.  This past week, Umande Trust traveled to a Bridge Academy school within Mukuru  to participate in a Global Handwashing Day celebration and the opening of a new Biocenter within the community.  The afternoon was filled with games, songs, and educational activities to teach the children about the proper way to wash their hands and at what times one should wash their hands.   After our celebration at the school, we turned the corner to take part in a ceremony for the opening of the first stage of a new biocenter, equipped with toilets and handwashing stations for men and women, and the service can be paid for through Mpesa.  Prominent members of the community and organizations that helped ...

Global Handwashing Day is this Saturday, October 15th! This week, Thursday through Saturday, Umande Trust will be hosting numerous events in celebration by visiting various schools across Nairobi and other regions of Kenya teaching children about health and hygiene! By partnering with these schools we hope to fulfill this year's theme: Make Handwashing a Habit.

Umande Trust | Kibera in search of peace