Ngotas Upendo

  • joao victor bolan
Ngota's Upendo (Swahili for Ngota's Love) Primary School is a small school located in the heart of Mathare Slum, Kenya's second biggest slum in the capital Nairobi. It's estimated that 500.000 people live there. Access to basic services like water, electricity and sanitation is very limited. The school, created by bishop Ngota, an influent figure from east Kenya who decided to help kids in the slums, has been transformed in a kind of safe-haven for a whole community inside Mathare. There, all the 110 kids from age 2 to 16, are provided with basic education, materials, food and basic health assistance. The idea was to create a safe environment for the kids to learn as much as possible, so they can maybe change their fates in a direction out of the slums. The high levels of corruption, a sad colonial history and a violent tribal sectarianism are some of the ingredients of this primordial soup that portions of African societies are exposed. In these pockets of poverty, life goes on at very low standard whereas many lives are ruined without nobody noticing it.