The Kenya Organization of Environmental Education (KOEE) is reaching out to well-wishers to contribute resources to buy foodstuff and urban vegetable farming items for distribution to our most vulnerable schools communities under our Eco-schools Programme in Nairobi City County.

We are targeting about 5,630 students from about 4,650 households in Mathare, Kibera, Baba Dogo, Roysambu and Kariobangi and their environs as starting points. These are informal settlements characterized by high poverty and low incomes. Most of the students in schools from these areas depend on the food they get at school. With the current social distancing measures put in place and suspension of learning as a response to slow the spread of Covid-19; most students are now not getting frequent meals.

Eco-schools is guided by the spirit of promoting resilient and sustainable communities. To make the initiative more sustainable, information, education, and communication materials will also be supplied to the Eco-schools to scale up the growing of their own food. The focus will on be sustainable food production through appropriate urban farming technologies i.e. Sack/Vertical gardening. Starter packs including sacks, seeds, fertilizer and simple instructional leaflets for the setup of vertical gardening will be distributed to five Eco-schools that will serve as hubs for the communities they are located in.

Parents of children in those schools who are currently out of work will provide the labor to set up and look after the vertical gardens, following government directives on safety measures for the reduction of the spread of Covid-19. Funds collected will be used to buy basic food items, and vertical gardening starter pack materials. These items will be distributed to families (households) of students from the targeted schools. The distribution points will be located at local area chiefs’ offices and/or police stations. The mobilization of the respective family representatives will be coordinated through the school headteachers.

Below are the costs of supplying the above items:

· Essential food package: Maize flour, Rice, Beans, Porridge Flour, Sugar and Cooking Oil @ KES 1,500 per household.

· Vertical gardening set up in Eco-schools items: Sack, Wire mesh, Seedlings, Manure/compost, Soil and Ballast @ KES 2,000 per vertical garden.