10/03/2026
For over a decade, Shaber Slums Dream Team in Korogocho, Kenya has been advancing gender and education equity through a community-built model that rescues vulnerable children, restores dignity through nutrition and school support, and prepares them for the digital future through inclusive learning and ICT integration.
Korogocho is neighboring the Dandora dumpsite. Poverty here is layered: hunger, school dropouts, teenage pregnancy, drug exposure, learning disabilities misunderstood as “failure,” and now digital exclusion.
Today, Shaber Slums Dream Team is carrying the baton and sharing what we have learnt in the Alliance For Women and Girls (AFWAG) Network Equity Relay, a Pan-African campaign proving that the solutions to gender justice already exist within communities closest to inequality.
We realized early:
You cannot talk about equity in 2026 without talking about digital access.
We then developed The “Rescue–Restore–Rise–Digitize” Community Equity Framework
A locally built, integrated approach designed from lived realities.
1 Rescue
We identify vulnerable children including those exposed to Dandora dumpsite risks and bring them into safe community programs through holiday feeding initiatives and mentorship.
2 Restore
Through:
✅️Adopt-A-Child school fees support
✅️Holiday and emergency feeding programs
✅️Dyslexia & dyscalculia teacher training (recognized globally)
We restore educational dignity.
Children once labeled “slow” are now understood and supported.
3 Rise
We empower mothers and vulnerable women through:
✅️Entrepreneurship mentorship
✅️Seed capital support
✅️Economic resilience training
Because when a woman rises, a girl stays in school.
4 Digitize
Through partnership with DigiToto, we integrate ICT and computer training for children in informal settlements who would otherwise never touch a computer.
We are closing the digital gap not in theory, but in practice.
In Korogocho, digital literacy is gender justice.
A girl who codes is harder to silence.
A boy who learns ICT is less vulnerable to crime networks.
Why This Matters
Gender injustice in informal settlements is intersectional:
Hunger
Economic dependency
Learning exclusion
Digital marginalization
Our insight:
Equity must be integrated.
You cannot feed a child and leave them digitally illiterate.
You cannot teach ICT to a hungry child.
You cannot empower a child while the mother remains economically trapped.
This model serves:
❇️Vulnerable girls at risk of early marriage and dropout
❇️Boys exposed to crime and substance abuse
❇️Mothers rebuilding household stability
❇️Teachers building inclusive classrooms
And this framework was not imported.
It was built in Korogocho, by the community, for the community.
The Global Message
Grassroots organizations in informal settlements are not beneficiaries of innovation, they are creators of innovation.
From rescuing children near the Dandora dumpsite, to integrating inclusive education, to bridging the digital divide through ICT training, Shaber Slums Dream Team demonstrates that gender equity solutions are already alive in African communities.
From Korogocho to the world,
We are sharing a working model.
You can find out more of our work at https://www.linkedin.com/company/shaber-slums-dream-team-organisation/. We are passing the baton to d'Action pour la Paix et le Développement Intégré, CEAPADI asbl.
