In 2023, Hazel’s Footprints Trust made a grant of £3,600 to Kidogo Kids, which supports disadvantaged children in the slums of Nairobi, to pay the salaries of the school’s head teacher and accountant. The idea was simple: a strong head and a capable accountant give a small school the stability it needs to stand on its own feet. We have renewed the grant each year since.
At our May 2026 meeting the Trustees agreed to extend the grant for one more year, the fourth August of funding, and the last. We hope that by the end of this year Kidogo Kids will be in a position to carry on without our support.
The two Eunices
Kidogo Kids wrote to us in March with good news. The school is “going well under the capable leadership of the two Eunices”, the head teacher and the accountant, who share a first name.
The headteacher has built a strong team among the staff, and this year the school has put more emphasis on life beyond the classroom. There are now different clubs running every day, each led by a teacher. A Fun Day before the half-term holiday was led by both Eunices, who joined in the games and the dancing and, as the team put it, encouraged the children by example.
Fees coming in
The accountant’s job is to make the school financially sustainable, and that means collecting fees from families who often struggle to pay. Despite Kenya’s tough economy and a sharply higher cost of living, fee collection is going “quite well”, with families making more regular payments as the accountant works with them. The school cannot yet cover all its teachers’ salaries without help, which is why our fourth year matters.
What happens next
Joan Scott Aiton has written to Kidogo Kids to confirm the final year and to say that we look forward to hearing from them. We will share their end-of-year report here, and we wish the two Eunices and the whole team well as they work towards running the school on their own.
