Being a slum dwelling, Ngando is not exempted from most of the challenges typical to a slum dwelling such as improper hygiene, disease burden, extreme poverty, crime, violence, drugs and family break-ups. These are vices that SVEC deals with on a day to day basis with her community of beneficiaries.

There is a local administration office manned by the area chief and also a local police post for security interventions and enforcement of law and order. Further representation for Ngando is through the county assembly and parliament. The area is classified as a ward and has a member of county assembly (MCA) and a member of parliament (MP) representing the entire Dagoretti where Ngando is a  member ward.

A quick survey through our interactions with the community indicates a community where most of the occupants are either illiterate of semi-illiterate. Majority work as casual laborers in the nearby suburbs of Karen and in the furniture workshops along Ngong’ road. A good number also work small and micro-enterprises (SME)’s within the community. A bigger majority are however jobless youths, men and women.

When it comes to living conditions, most of the population lives in 10ft by 10ft temporary iron-sheet houses under deplorable conditions i.e. lack of proper sewer systems, poor hygiene, insecurity, lack of tapped clean water, no healthcare facility amongst other basic social amenities.

Education wise, it is rather unfortunate that a community of over 65,000 people has no government funded public primary school or secondary school in the location. This has led to mushrooming of substandard private schools which extort the already struggling community of high amounts in fee with  no consideration to quality services. As a result, many children in the community miss out on proper foundation al education hence the intervention of SVEC through the school project.

The people of Ngando are resilient and hardworking. Our interaction with the children in this community and the families here has introduces us to a people who are the embodiment of the Kenyan spirit of resilience and hope. It has paid greatly working with the community as we see a lot of success and receive such tremendous amount of satisfaction from our work within the community.