The Chosen Vessels

"The Mathare slum is a region in the north-eastern part of Nairobi and is next to Kibera (Nairobi), not just the second biggest slum in Kenya, but in whole east Africa. A census in 2006 estimated, that around 600,000 people lived in Mathare, with rising tendency due to overpopulation and high birth rates. Even more frightening about this number was the estimated number of around 100,000 street children living in Mathare slum."

"The chosen vessel’s organization is a community based organization that identifies, mobilizes and channels all the available resources for socio-economic empowerment and development. The group of fourteen people try to provide assistance in terms of life skills, information provision and humanitarian work such as psychological meetings and workshops. The organization see a lot of potential, especially in the younger generation that is just unreleased due to the fatal circumstances the youth has to suffer with."

“The chosen vessels” built up three primary schools in Mathare to target the most vulnerable children. The educational programmes stick the governmental fulfilments, giving the children the opportunity to proper educational training. The school fees of 6$ per month are used for providing food such as breakfast and lunch, and to support the mostly voluntarily working teachers. But even children that cannot pay these fees due to familiar problems are supported by funding of the organization and well-wishers. So far, the organization is capable to grant proper education for nearly 150 children that is guaranteed by 10 voluntarily teachers.

At the moment, the organization focus on the youth in Kisumu, western Kenya, by offering them access to sportive and positive activities like soccer. Therefore, they started to form and support a Kisumu Ladies soccer team. Aim is to give them vision to strive for success and employ them in useful belongings than leaving them alone in idleness and boredom. Next to this support in leisure, different workshops are planned. These workshops should cover up topics like business, an economic way of thinking and micro-investments. With that knowledge, the people are capable to create their own countryside-integrative businesses with an appropriate income. Thereby, especially the fish-farming business stays in focus for the organization because it promises a lot of income. In 2019 the Kenyan agriculture government released a statistic, that an average person consumes just 1.9 kg fish per year, which shows the high demand of fish in comparison to its availability.