John is 14 years old, and he lives with his mother who does casual laundry jobs for a living in the informal settlements in Nairobi. The family cannot access electricity in their small tin roofed house in Mukuru slums of Nairobi. This makes it hard for John to do his homework in the evening. He also has challenges getting revision materials and access to remedial classes which cost 30 Kenya shillings (USD 0.30) per session. In addition to these challenges, he lost his father some years back and the mother finds it difficult to talk to him on any issue which has led to a strained relationship between the two of them.
This project, that has many activities, including parental engagement forums which aim to train parents different ways of engaging with and in their children’s education, provision of learning materials, and financial support to centres that offer remedial classes allow students like John, to attend the classes at no cost. John maximizes the time he spends in the classes and his grades have im-proved.
The parental engagement sessions have empowered his mother to take a parents’ role in raising her children, as a single mother. She deliberately sets aside time to communicate with her son and ask about school and other positive and negative things happening in his life in the slums. This intervention has brought positive change to the family in different aspects, including improving John’s performance in school and his relationship with his mother.