Charity lauded for boosting access to family planning

A community-based organisation empowering people living in informal settlements in Nairobi has been lauded by British billionaire hedge fund manager Christopher Hohn for its efforts to increase access to family planning information among teenagers in slums.

Speaking during his Wednesday visit to Shining Hope for Communities (Shofco) in Kibera, Mr Hohn praised the organisation for allowing children as young as 14 to attend family planning awareness workshops.

 “Shofco has helped increase access to information regarding family planning and this is laudable. I’m impressed by their move to allow children as young as 14 years to attend family planning awareness workshops,” Mr Hohn said.

Mr Hohn spent about six hours visiting Shofco’s projects, which include Africa’s only aerial water piping system, a community clinic, a gender-based-violence response department, a girls' school, the school’s library,  the Shofco Urban Network, and a water treatment plant.

“The clinics were started from the idea that people should not die because of lack of healthcare. In our clinics, we treat children below five years of age for free,” Shofco founder Kennedy Odede said, adding that, since then, his organisation has been supporting young mothers by training them on the use of family planning methods, sponsoring them to go back to school and enrolling them for HIV/Aids testing and counselling sessions.

Shofco, Mr Odede added, is also planning to start a daycare programme for children of teen mothers who have returned to school.

With an estimated worth of $5 billion according to the Forbes billionaires list in 2020, through his charity, The Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, he focuses on improving the lives of underprivileged children living in developing countries.

Mr Hohn’s organisations, he said, will support underprivileged Kenyans through bursaries, championing laws to protect minors and increasing community health workers across the country.

During his visit, Mr Hohn commissioned the Subra 1 borehole project which is one of four of its kind drilled by Shofco in Kibera. The borehole is connected to a digital water kiosk which is one of Shofco’s 21 newly operationalised water kiosks in the area.

“When we have clean water for use, we reduce the burden of waterborne diseases in the community which in turn increases the number of pupils going to school. Clean water causes a ripple effect,” Mr Odede said.