About Us
Vision
We envision girls and a community with the agency to realize their full potential.
Mission Statement
Our mission is to alleviate generational poverty amongst the most disadvantaged and marginalized girls and communities in Kenya. To do this, we will employ our core values in the provision of holistic programming focused on education, health & wellness, economic empowerment, and life skills training to provide our beneficiaries the agency to make sustainable changes for self-sufficiency
Core Values
ROF works in partnership with local communities; CBOs, self help groups, schools, government etc to achieve healthy and productive societies. Collaborations with these local groups is central to our development activities since we believe that only through such alliances and resource sharing can we build sustainable and resilient communities. ROF is committed to the following 4 key values in its work and organizational life. These values serve as our working norms and establish the behavioral guidelines for successful organizational performance.
We envision girls and a community with the agency to realize their full potential.
Mission Statement
Our mission is to alleviate generational poverty amongst the most disadvantaged and marginalized girls and communities in Kenya. To do this, we will employ our core values in the provision of holistic programming focused on education, health & wellness, economic empowerment, and life skills training to provide our beneficiaries the agency to make sustainable changes for self-sufficiency
Core Values
ROF works in partnership with local communities; CBOs, self help groups, schools, government etc to achieve healthy and productive societies. Collaborations with these local groups is central to our development activities since we believe that only through such alliances and resource sharing can we build sustainable and resilient communities. ROF is committed to the following 4 key values in its work and organizational life. These values serve as our working norms and establish the behavioral guidelines for successful organizational performance.
- Collaboration: ROF works respectfully in collaboration with the Kenyan Govt, local community groups, schools, the private sector and donors, bringing together the unique resources of all to achieve shared goals.
- Integrity: ROF consistently works in a spirit of mutual trust, honesty, transparency and accountability.
- Excellence in Performance: ROF works to ensure that its programs are high quality, effective and efficient in nature. They are results-oriented, achieving both development effectiveness and desired results; and are gender and age sensitive as well.
- Sustainability: ROF endeavors to build local sustainability by emphasizing local ownership and resource mobilization for its programs.
BACKGROUND
Since its founding in 2010, Riley Orton Foundation has supported girls through education mainly at Akili preparatory school for girls, partnered with different primary and high schools to distribute school uniforms and bicycles to both boys and girls and helped women and youth acquire seed capital and microloans to support their business. ROF projects have mainly been in the areas of education and micro-enterprise development.
A. Education
ROF’s work in the education sector has included construction, equipping and running of Akili Preparatory School For Girls, training on Information Communication Technology (ICT), literacy promotion as well as provision of school uniforms and bicycles to increase access to education for underprivileged girls and boys. In addition, there has been a focus on life skills training for youth through sports for development and counseling in an effort to reinforce their knowledge on sexual and reproductive health and rights and build their capacity to become more active and productive agents in their communities.
B. Entrepreneurship Training/Enterprise Development.
ROF has supported local business women and youth through training on basic business skills including bookkeeping, budgeting and business planning. This support has also included vocational skills training in dressmaking and hairdressing for out of school youth and teenage mothers. The beneficiaries have also been advanced microloans and micro grants to grow their businesses. These programs have worked with individuals, community groups and small scale businesses.
CHANGING CONTEXT
When ROF was founded in 2010, the quality of education in public schools was wanting. The high number of students and poor quality of instruction in classrooms due to overstretched resources in public schools led to a steady increase in the number of alternative providers of primary education such as private academies and community schools that were seen to have fewer number of students and hence offer quality education. Non Profit Organizations stepped in to fill the gaps in the education system providing life skills training, leadership and health education including sexual and reproductive health and rights. Nearly 10 years later, substantial progress has been made in the education sector including curriculum reforms that have shifted our focus to competencies and skills that reach beyond traditional academics. Core competencies for basic education that cut across subject areas and expand subject areas to include essential topics for this century such as citizenship, health education, Life Skills and values education, Education for Sustainable development, non formal programs, community service learning and parental engagement have been proposed.
The Kenyan government has also introduced the 100% transition policy from primary to secondary school, ensuring that all students graduating from primary schools are assured of spaces in high schools. This has in turn led to overstretched resources in public high schools with some learners forced to take classes under the trees.
Furthermore, over time we have seen a paradigm shift in development thinking and practice, especially in the areas of decentralization, participation and sustainability. Stakeholder and beneficiary participation, and local partnerships are seen as being key to ownership and sustainability as well as best-practice. Consequently, there is growing competition for fewer donor resources and an even greater need for local development players to collaborate for common objectives. ROF must continue to seek opportunities for substantive developmental partnerships and broker new relationships with these grassroots institutions. Recognition of these changes is important in developing an effective strategy to continue to provide quality education and empower local communities to be self sufficient.
Since its founding in 2010, Riley Orton Foundation has supported girls through education mainly at Akili preparatory school for girls, partnered with different primary and high schools to distribute school uniforms and bicycles to both boys and girls and helped women and youth acquire seed capital and microloans to support their business. ROF projects have mainly been in the areas of education and micro-enterprise development.
A. Education
ROF’s work in the education sector has included construction, equipping and running of Akili Preparatory School For Girls, training on Information Communication Technology (ICT), literacy promotion as well as provision of school uniforms and bicycles to increase access to education for underprivileged girls and boys. In addition, there has been a focus on life skills training for youth through sports for development and counseling in an effort to reinforce their knowledge on sexual and reproductive health and rights and build their capacity to become more active and productive agents in their communities.
B. Entrepreneurship Training/Enterprise Development.
ROF has supported local business women and youth through training on basic business skills including bookkeeping, budgeting and business planning. This support has also included vocational skills training in dressmaking and hairdressing for out of school youth and teenage mothers. The beneficiaries have also been advanced microloans and micro grants to grow their businesses. These programs have worked with individuals, community groups and small scale businesses.
CHANGING CONTEXT
When ROF was founded in 2010, the quality of education in public schools was wanting. The high number of students and poor quality of instruction in classrooms due to overstretched resources in public schools led to a steady increase in the number of alternative providers of primary education such as private academies and community schools that were seen to have fewer number of students and hence offer quality education. Non Profit Organizations stepped in to fill the gaps in the education system providing life skills training, leadership and health education including sexual and reproductive health and rights. Nearly 10 years later, substantial progress has been made in the education sector including curriculum reforms that have shifted our focus to competencies and skills that reach beyond traditional academics. Core competencies for basic education that cut across subject areas and expand subject areas to include essential topics for this century such as citizenship, health education, Life Skills and values education, Education for Sustainable development, non formal programs, community service learning and parental engagement have been proposed.
The Kenyan government has also introduced the 100% transition policy from primary to secondary school, ensuring that all students graduating from primary schools are assured of spaces in high schools. This has in turn led to overstretched resources in public high schools with some learners forced to take classes under the trees.
Furthermore, over time we have seen a paradigm shift in development thinking and practice, especially in the areas of decentralization, participation and sustainability. Stakeholder and beneficiary participation, and local partnerships are seen as being key to ownership and sustainability as well as best-practice. Consequently, there is growing competition for fewer donor resources and an even greater need for local development players to collaborate for common objectives. ROF must continue to seek opportunities for substantive developmental partnerships and broker new relationships with these grassroots institutions. Recognition of these changes is important in developing an effective strategy to continue to provide quality education and empower local communities to be self sufficient.
Where we work
ROF has successfully worked in Obunga slum and Kanyawegi Village in Kisumu county as well as Ndegwe in Siaya County over the past 7 years. In its new strategy largely focused on establishing partnerships and fostering local ownership, we have identified the following additional counties in which we may establish programs when necessary or expedient: i) SIAYA; ii) KAKAMEGA; iii) BUSIA; iv) VIHIGA and v) BUNGOMA