Hope in the slums

In the centre of Kibera slum, Nairobi, Kenya, on what used to be a rubbish dump, stand three schools, a boarding house for teenage girls, a church, a medical clinic, some outhouses for animals and a basic kitchen. There are fewer open sewers and more roads here than anywhere else in Kibera and every day 1,400 children come to learn and be fed.

In January this year a team of six British women left the Midlands to spend a week helping in one of the schools. It’s hard being a child in Kibera slum. Some drop out of school when they are eight to work on the rubbish dump, rummaging through the waste looking for things to sell. There is a high rate of unemployment and alcoholism. Girls are vulnerable to sexual exploitation and trafficking. A 12-year-old girl’s education isn’t as valuable to a Kiberan father as the dowry of cows her marriage might bring. Rachel and Hannah from Hinckley, Leicestershire spent the week with the teenage girls.

“They were aged between 15 and 19 and most hadn’...