And for 5 minutes of your time we will be donating £10 to AbleChildAfrica's project Little Rock

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As a thank you for your time we will be donating £10 for every completed survey to the Little Rock Early Childhood Development Centre, a project run in association with AbleChildAfrica.

If you would like to know how much we raised you can leave your details at the end of the survey so we can contact you with our total donation.

More about Little Rock:

Kibera, situated in Nairobi, is one of Africa’s largest slums and home to Little Rock Inclusive Early Childhood Development Centre. Primary School is available free in Kenya, but the curriculum requires basic skills that most children in Kibera simply do not have. Most children in Kibera live in homes without proper sanitation and electricity, their parents are busy trying to make ends meet and do not have the resources to concentrate on their children’s early education.

It is here that Lilly Oyare took the initiative and founded Little Rock, an Early Childhood Development Centre providing inclusive education for children in Kibera. Lilly believed it to be deeply unfair that children from slums like Kibera are already dis-advantaged when they start primary school. She wanted them to be able to ‘have the same chance of succeeding at school’ as her own children who had attended private pre-schools.
Established in 2003, Little Rock currently has 240 children from the ages of 0-8 attending the Early Childhood Programme. Approximately 1/3 of the children are disabled. Little Rock is dedicated to creating an inclusive and empowering education environment where all children work and play together.

But Little Rock is more than just a school:

• The project has established a parents’ support group to help the families of disabled children come to terms with their child’s disability. It also supports families to access healthcare and employment opportunities.

• The support Little Rock provides to children and families does not end once they graduate from the Early Childhood School. They continue to use the Little Rock library, receive after school tutoring and participate in sports teams and creative activities.

The centre was initially staffed by volunteers but now has 20 staff plus 16 parents in regular support roles who receive an allowance. It started in a single rented room with 5 students. Within 1 month, 100 students had been registered. Today, Little Rock works with 500 children and their families, across all its services.

AbleChildAfrica has been partners with Little Rock since 2006. They provide the centre with financial support, specialist equipment as well as capacity building through mentoring, training and support of Little Rock’s Director and Staff. They also provide Governance support to the Trustees.

More about AbleChildAfrica:

AbleChildAfrica is the leading UK charity working exclusively with and on behalf of, disabled children in Africa. Our mission is to promote the realisation of equal rights for disabled children and their families in Africa and to facilitate their meaningful inclusion in all aspects of life.  We currently work in East Africa with five partner organisations across three countries: Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. We are firmly committed to African led solutions to local challenges; therefore the projects AbleChildAfrica supports vary with local need but typically focus on education, health, employment, sport and advocacy initiatives for disabled children and youth. 

Why AbleChildAfrica's work is so important

The UN estimates that 15% of the world's population is living with a disability, yet despite significant progress in recent years, disabled people, particularly children, still struggle to receive widespread attention in international development programmes.  Disabled children in Africa are largely denied access to appropriate services, such as education, health, protective, social and legal services. This is due to lack of resources, unsupportive legislation and stigma and negative perceptions of disability. As a result the statistics we face are bleak, it is estimated that up to 98% of disabled children in developing countries remain out of school and globally, 99% of disabled girls are illiterate. It is therefore no wonder that 80% of disabled people globally live in chronic poverty.