Informal settlements are often overtly ignored by governments and local authorities. This contributes to the lack of data available on slums, their inhabitants, and their opinions.

Yet, community-relevant research is critical for a participatory slum upgrading process. So one of the critical steps we take prior to partnering with any communities or schools, is extensive research.

We work with local research partners to understand the existing education network in urban slums as well as the demand and perceptions of education. This data and information are critical components to identifying and adding community secondary schools to our network.

We are also actively and continuously conducting cross-sectional research on civic engagement levels to ensure that there is a real need for our S.L.U.M.S. curriculum and service learning projects.

Based on the findings we co-design school partnerships, adding pre-existing schools to our network of community secondary schools. Each partnership is customized and tailored to each of the school’s specific needs and growth plans. Our participation can range from a total investment of school build and operations all the way to simply integrating our SLUMS curriculum. All of this is based on the assessed health of each of the schools; however, the common denominator that we’ve identified is that these community private schools for the poor are sustainable models that have proven successful and to be in demand from families.

The Supply aims to support these local entrepreneurs (or what we like to call “edu-preneurs”) to continue to provide quality secondary education to the slum youth. We do this through various capacity building efforts as well as access to financial and knowledge capital: training, resources, pro-bono support, financial planning, support in creation of new programs that will help recruiting students (vocational, afterschool, sports) and financial support. In return, the directors of these schools will commit to uphold the three values that we measure the success of our school network on: academic performance (equal or higher scores than neighboring government schools), financial sustainability (record of revenue growth), and most importantly community impact. Each of the schools commit to the training, implementation, and evaluation of our SLUMS program.

See our list of current network schools here.

Here are the current schools in our Supply network. These low cost private secondary schools are committed to making the SLUMS Curriculum an integral part of their educational delivery and have been rigorously evaluated on the strength of their leadership team, academic performance, and long-term financial health.

1) KevJumba High School in the Lenana slums of Nairobi (Director: Fanuel Okwaro)

 

 

 

 

 

 

2) Elyon High School in the Dagoretti slums of Nairobi (Director: William Eyita)

 

 

 

 

 

 

3) Genesis Joy Institute in the Mathare slums of Nairobi (Director: Christopher Barasa)

 

 

 

 

 

 

4) Boston High School in the Matopeni/Kayole slums of Nairobi

Through our initial fieldwork research, we have begun to understand the complexities of urban slums and the questions that remain for what the outcomes of education should be in this particular context. Yet, each slum community has its own unique challenges and opportunities. With this in mind, we tailor our S.L.U.M.S (Student Leaders Understanding My Slums) Program based on community needs addressed in local meetings, focus groups, and our S.L.U.M.S “Labs” teacher training, allowing the local community, teachers, administration, and students to all have a part in shaping what educational outcomes they hope to see.

The S.L.U.M.S program is at the center of each of the schools in The Supply network. What is S.L.U.M.S? It is a collaboratively designed curriculum that addresses the specific needs and outcomes of the urban slum youth. The curriculum focuses on supplementing the existing national curriculum with a discussion-based, child-centered, peer-led andragogy focused on human rights and service learning. Some of the desired outcomes of this change are to create physical and emotional space for these students, providing a platform to discuss human rights, reinforcing collaboration, engaging students with community service and developing socio-emotional skills.

In its simplest form, this program would challenge students to do six things: dream, ask, investigate, create, discuss, and reflect. We think this type of learning in the new community secondary schools is critical to developing the future leaders who will upgrade their communities. The problem-centered approach combined with the service-learning component will equip students with the tools to not only think critically about their community’s plights but also allow them to reflect on what their democratic responsibilities are in addressing them.

Our work is futile without measurable results. We regularly evaluate the performance of our network schools (financial sustainability, academic performance, and community impact) and measure the effectiveness of our SLUMS program. Throughout the school year(s), we will be measuring “activation” — the students’ increased civic engagement and participation levels through our S.L.U.M.S program through quantitative and qualitative metrics. In the longer-term, we plan to track graduation rates and evaluate the impacts of secondary schooling as well as the social return on investment (increased wages, lower STI rates, healthier care-taking practices). Please see the progress of our continuously evolving monitoring and evaluation on our impact page.

Our pilot school (KevJumba High School in the Lenana slums) supplemented with coinciding research aimed to identify and evaluate four key elements:

a) The demand of secondary school education in slums (also associated with enrollment and financial sustainability)

b) The risks and liabilities involved with “building” schools in slums (land tenancy issues)

c) The delivery of education in community secondary schools

d) The effective implementation and integration of a service learning curriculum and an evaluation of its relevance/need

 

As a result, our pilot has helped shape our work. In addition, during our own R&D and through findings from our local research partners, we have also identified and studied existing community secondary schools in the Nairobi slums (varying in maturity, budget, health), which have shaped our model.  Here are some of the key findings that have allowed us to move forward with our replication model.

a) “building” schools and establishing a new school is a large risk in urban slums because of the tenuous land tenancy issues. Land rights are highly contentious; therefore newly established schools in slums are threatened by eviction/demolition.  The liabilities are too great, so we are only investing in these capital projects on a case-by-case basis, and they will only be a small percentage of our portfolio mix.

b) These community secondary schools are in demand, but school directors/entrepreneurs need greater tools, programs, and strategies to market the schools and recruit students. We currently have 35 students in our pilot school who are paying minimal fees to attend and that is intended to reach 80 by January 2014. We are intending to do further research to identify optimal tuition rates for maximum enrollment.

c) These schools have the potential to provide quality education as they are able to attract quality teachers. We are still doing a more extensive study into the determinants of academically successful community schools. Scores in some of the community secondary schools are just as competitive as the local government schools. Tenure and turnover of teachers are still concerns, but there are strong correlations with the financial health of the school.

d) Our SLUMS Labs (training) at KJHS as well as the implementation have been successful.

Often times in development work, people want to see immediate results and fast scaling. Further, a lot of nonprofits are really good at showing good these days, but not doing good. Combatting against these pressures is tough, but our organization is committed to doing work that produces measurable results and makes an impact.

We have strategically thought about our place in this development space and exactly what impact we could make. Instead of scaling quickly, we want to invest our time into our model, learning from it, and testing our theory of change. We have 1, 5, and 10 year impact plans that will help us measure not only short-term but also long-term gains. If our model proves successful, we believe that we can improve the delivery of education to urban slum children, identify best practices for upgrading urban slums, and most importantly help improve the lives of the people we serve.

Development work is not supposed to be easy nor is it glamorous. But, it is hard work, and we will spend our energy and time deeply focused on the problem, and even more focused on the solution.

Our pilot school is servicing 35 slum youth and they have begun service learning projects. To get an overview of SLUMS in action, check out the monthly summaries below.

August SLUMS

September SLUMS

We are in the process of establishing partnerships with additional schools for 2014. Check back soon for more information on our impact!