Awareness & Fundraising Ideas:

• Make a traditional East African dinner: Invite the adults in your neighborhood and community—and ask for donations. For delicious recipe ideas, see: http://www.whats4eats.com/africa/kenya-cuisine
• Bake Sale: A simple and fun way to spread the word about what’s happening in Kibera—and no one ever has enough yummy baked goods in their life!
• Birthday Party: Instead of traditional birthday gifts– ask for donations for the Kibera School for Girls.
• Coin Drive: Ask your school if you can make a display with a big bucket to collect spare change for real change. Just $1 in America goes a long way in Kenya!
• Music Concert: Invite a local musician or artist to do a benefit concert!
• Silent Auction: Ask local businesses and neighbors to donate goods and services and host a silent auction.

Educational Program Ideas (donated from our friends at the Chapin School):

• Clothing - present a powerpoint about clothing worn in Kenya, including pictures of women in kangas,  maasai women’s beaded jewellery, maasai men wearing their blankets. Compare and contrast these with clothing worn by people in your area. Also show pictures of people dressed in regular clothing, and talk about how many people dress just like we do! We then have the kids cut out paper dolls and, using cut paper only, “dress” their dolls in Kenyan clothing (well, we study three countries, so they have one Chinese, one Indian and one Kenyan doll, all holding hands). The kids could potentially dress one as themselves, holding the hands of two Kenyan children… or something… if you want an example I can probably get a kid to make one for you!

• Entertainment – talk about how children in Kibera don’t have toys and games that they can just go out and buy, so they create their own. Give each group of students a garbage bag full of cleaned recyclables – we gave them a bunch of plastic grocery bags, some empty bottles of various sizes, lots of lids of various sizes, some straws, some plastic tubs (as used for butter and stuff), and then provided pebbles, no more than 3 feet of string per group, no more than 2 feet of duct tape per group…. you get the idea… then we told them to “create”! Their ideas can be legendary – from tow-along cars that had lids for wheels, to ten-pin bowling games, the girls had such a blast. Students can then write a procedural text telling how to use/play it. We then took all their games out into the park and they showed each other how to play.

• Language – Give each kid a letter of the alphabet, and a choice of corresponding Kiswahili word. Each student created a ‘tile’ with that word and decorated with torn paper and coloured pencils.

• Food – we are making kechumbari, irio and chapattis at school.

Check out this link for lots of educational resources on food, culture, history and language of Kenya: http://www.kids-4-kenya.org/learn-about-kenya/index.cfm