Redeemed Gospel Church Mathare has been implementing social Development activities since the year 1992 before registering the social development wing “Supporting Arms Development Agency (SADA)” as an NGO in December 2016. The focus was and continues to be on communities living in the informal settlements areas that have over the years been confronted by high level of poverty and poor living standards. The main projects that SADA implements include; Education – Early Childhood Development (ECD) & Primary education, Vocational training, Economic Empowerment, Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), Relief support/cash transfer, HIV/AIDS, Gender and Women rights.
What We Do
Early Childhood Development (ECD) and primary education
In promoting of children rights to education and their protection, SADA is supporting children in its own institution (Neeves School), by providing very subsidized school fees. The school’s staff comprise of qualified teachers
Vocational training
SADA operates a vocational training institution (Wilma Training Institute) whose aim is to impart trade skills to the Youth from Mathare slum community. The institution trains the community (men and women) in skills such as tailoring
Child development and Protection
Besides facilitating child development and protection through education, SADA has been working to promote children’s welfare and protection through life skills training, Sexual and Gender Based Violence awareness raising
Economic Empowerment
As a means to realizing sustainability, SADA targets at supporting livelihoods through various avenues including; business and entrepreneurship training, business support, life-skills training, literacy and numeracy training, vocational training
Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH)
SADA have a water borehole within its compound. To ensure that the community access clean drinking water, it has a water treatment project where treated water is availed to the community at a very affordable cost.
Relief/Cash transfer
SADA through support from donors/well-wishers implements relief interventions where vulnerable households living in the informal settlements are supported with relief in form of either food baskets or cash transfer. This has been vital,
HIV/AIDs
SADA implements activities in the area of Support groups – therapies/psychosocial support/VS&L/skills training, referrals, & linkages. SADA also supports Orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) access education, health and psychosocial support.
Gender Justice and women rights
We work to prevent all forms of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV). We raise awareness on individual rights for all people in the communities we serve, with special focus on women and children, who sometimes suffer marginalization especially
Where We Work
SADA’s areas of operations are in the sub counties of Kasarani, Starehe, Embakasi, Mathare and Ruaraka. These are informal settlements which are characterized by poor sewage systems, poor housing, and poverty, Inadequate health and schooling facilities, unemployment, malnutrition, child abuse, drug abuse, widespread of HIV/AIDS and high crime rate among other conditions.
There are evident cases of school age children who are found in the villages due to lack of fees and school uniforms. To survive, some of the families also engage in small hawking businesses which include selling paraffin outside their homes, vegetables, food kiosks and also selling cooked food on the road sides. Some women in the slums wash cloths for fee in estates adjusted to the slums. All these earnings/incomes are very low and inadequate to feed the families besides not meeting other basic needs. Some of the children have opted to go to the streets to scavenge in the dumpsites for food and materials for recycling in the industries.
Other indications of high poverty levels in these slums include the type of fuel used to prepare food which includes plastic tins, wood dust and pieces of wood collected from the streets. Most families eat one meal a day with very little or no diversity in their diets. Related to poverty also is the high disease burden with a high prevalence of communicable diseases.