Rye,
Thank you for sending this update. I have been watching the news with anxiousness from the safety of our perch the west. The irony of the fact that Barack Obama is making such strides in the US while the country of his father spirals backwards is such a shame. CFK and the other sport for change organizations in Nairobi and Kenya are a light in the darkness, It feels like a very extreme example of a teachable moment for the power of sport. How do you think Kenya will heal the enflamed ethnic tensions after recent events? Can sport play a role? Our thoughts and prayers are with all the young people of CfK and their families.
Best regards,
Ziba

Dear Paul and Suzanne,

Thank you very much for your comment on our entry. I began working on revising our Impact section just before the holiday -- would appreciate it if you could take a look at our new "theory of change" and send me your feedback.

Regarding the actual impact chain and getting anecdotes from the ground, we are at a very unfortunate standstill in our work on the ground in Kibera as a result of the ongoing violence in the slum and Kenya at large. Our communications with our staff and volunteers are completely focused on confirming safety. I would have very much liked to have expanded the Impact section (although there are word/character limits within the contest entry) before the entry deadline, but I am afraid we won't be able to get the information from the ground in time to do so. I will be posting an abbreviated version of an update of the situation in Kibera and Kenya right after this comment.

Thanks again -- we are very grateful for the feedback from our Blue Devil friends down the road.

Sincerely,
Emily

Emily Reynolds Pierce
Vice President
Carolina for Kibera, Inc.
www.carolinaforkibera.org
ep@unc.edu

Dear Kevin,

Thank you very much for your positive feedback regarding CFK's on-field program, as well as the thoughtful suggestions for strenthening our off-the-field initiatives. The way our off-the-field programs came to be was a result of much the type of process you describe: the motivated youth on the soccer teams an interest in and need for more off-field skills training. In some ways, the youth's hunger for these programs demanded that CFK take a more holistic approach to violence prevention and community development. As CFK has discovered through its Binti Pamoja Center for adolescent girls, sometimes everything the girls were learning about their rights as women was being trumped by their inferior economic situation. This may also be true for our youth in the sports program. Fostering cooperation among ethnic groups through sport is a big piece of the puzzle, instilling a sense of community through service, is another. Yet another piece, however, relates to personal economic development.

We have started off with offering trainings and workshops in the areas most often requested by the players, although I don't believe that we have conducted a formal survey. Keeping in mind that CFK is a youthful 6-years-old, I think your vision for expanding the program to be more inclusive and to foster a broader range of skill-sets and professional interests is spot on. The more the youth receive individualized support, perhaps the more likely that child is to be successful and reach his/her goals (and ultimately lift themselves out of poverty and lead/inspire others to do the same). I think we all can say that we are most likely to succeed when we are doing an activity about which we are passionate. Sport/soccer is CFK's unifying mechanism, bringing Kibera youth together; refining our off-the-field program will certainly bring our impact to the next level.

Many thanks, Kevin, and please let be in touch with more thoughts!

Emily Reynolds Pierce
Vice President
Carolina for Kibera, Inc.
www.carolinaforkibera.org
ep@unc.edu

Dear Dorian,

You raise a critically important aspect to the work we do in Kibera: measuring success. Clearly, we are making an impact purely based on the number of youth who participate in the soccer program, as well as seek out our workshops and skills trainings. We can say, "X number of youth gained business acumen through a computation workshop last Friday," but what we cannot say -- right now anyway -- is how we have directly impacted a decrease in the violence rate in Kibera (as caused by ethnicity or religion). We are, however, in discussions with one foundation that is interested in funding such an analysis, as well as pursuing other leads to other potential funders for this project. We envision that an appropriate impact analysis will take several years in order to measure current levels of violence, track youth participation in violence, as well as track adult participation in violence (CFK participants vs. non-participants). CFK is very dedicated to pursuing an impact analysis because it is pivotal to proving success and to organizational sustainability.

CFK tries to address the issue of parental influence by providing a direct contrast through sport. The youth play with each other on a diverse playing field, and experiences in working with each other towards a common goal, we believe, will help to counteract the effects of living with prejudicial guardians.

In Kibera's case, however, ethnic and religious violence is often spurred on by politics, as with the upcoming presidential election in December. The two top candidates are already playing different ethnic groups off of one another, particularly within Kibera. As people living in one of the most unforgiving places in the world, Kibera residents must compete for scarce resources. Candidates often make promises for resources and government services in exchange for votes, and the promises are sometimes made along ethnic lines, kindling resentment and, eventually, violence.

CFK's approach to this root cause of violence (politics) is to focus on the youth leadership and development aspect of our sports program. Members of CFK will grow up to become leaders on a local, national, and indeed, global level. We believe that they will ultimately become a new generation of African leadership that will change the very political structures that allow a place like Kibera to exist in the first place. In this way, and in the long-term, CFK hopes to decrease violence through sport (as a tool for youth development and leadership). We hope to obtain the funding that will allow us to implement an analysis project to prove it!

Emily Reynolds Pierce
Vice President
Carolina for Kibera, Inc.
www.carolinaforkibera.org
ep@unc.edu

Dear Dr. Cameron,

Thank you very much for your comment on the CFK project. Please contact me at my work e-mail (ep@unc.edu) and I would be happy to discuss all of these issues and possiblities with you! I like your model, and I think we could learn from Boxgirls, as well.

Sincerely,

Emily Reynolds Pierce
Vice President
Carolina for Kibera, Inc.
www.carolinaforkibera.org
ep@unc.edu

Dear Lady A,

Many thanks for your encouragement and comment. CFK is very concerned about financial sustainability, and consequently, (1) has adopted a volunteer-based model in the U.S. and (2) is pursuing an endowment fund strategy in partnership with UNC. CFK-Kenya's patron organization, CFK, Inc., is made up of a nearly all-volunteer staff. This volunteer-based model ensured that, over the past five years, 82% of our funds actually reached the ground in Kibera, relieving some of the financial sustainability pressure that other nonprofits with high overhead costs experience.

That said, CFK still recognizes that importance of and need for a consistent source of funding for CFK-Kenya, and is on a quest to establish an endowment fund. Interest off of the endowment, once established, will cover a majority of our core operating expenses, and with time, will allow the leaders in Kibera to grow CFK's program budget. The fund will be administered and managed by UNC Management LLC. We hope that this strategy will afford not only financial sustainability, but also programmatic flexibility in Kibera. As with many developing, urban communities, environmental and social factors that affect CFK's work change constantly. With a consistent source of funding, the young Kenyan men and women managing CFK programs in Kibera will be able to react to their changing environment and allow CFK to evolve over time. With the support of the Schmidt Family Foundation, the Omidyar Family Foundation, and hundreds of other individual private donations, CFK has reached $1.1M of its $4M endowment goal.

Emily Pierce
Vice President, CFK Inc.

Dear Ziba,

CFK has been able to leverage its relationship with UNC in many important ways. First, we are working to involve the motivated undergraduate students at UNC this year by first focusing on the UNC Senior Class of 2008. Each year, the senior class president and the class marshals organize the Senior Campaign for Carolina, which replaced the senior class gift a couple years ago. Instead of purchasing a physical gift on campus, seniors can choose the academic, athletic, or other program to which they would like to donate their personal gift to the University. This year, the senior class chose Carolina for Kibera as the senior class' endorsed fund. While seniors may still choose where they would like to donate their money, the senior class leadership is encouraging seniors to give to Carolina for Kibera through awareness events, speakers, and other senior class activities. The exposure we are generating on campus via the senior class is incredible, we have recruited new campus volunteers from the underclassmen ranks, and we expect a very competitive selection process for our summer volunteers. This campaign will be similar to the Obama Model, in that seniors are encouraged to give a modest gift of $20.08 (to reflect their graduation year) each, which will add up with higher participation.

Secondly, we believe that CFK is an important componant of the University's and Chancellor's mission to go global, and we're very excited to have moved into our new home at the FedEx Global Education Center, which was just dedicated on Oct 12. We are supporting UNC students who want to have experiential learning experiences abroad through the James and Florence Peacock Fellows program. Each year, CFK selects two UNC students to receive a Peacock Fellowship, which covers their airfare and living expenses associated with volunteering in Kibera. Students are really interested in creating a partnership between the youth in Kibera and the young men and women at UNC, and that partnership grows stronger every summer through the volunteer program. When the volunteers return to campus the next year, they spend the year exploring new ways for the University and CFK to collaborate, raise awareness about urban poverty issues, and fundraise.

Finally, CFK is leveraging its institutional support at UNC by establishing an endowment fund to be administered and managed by the University's investment group, UNC Management LLC. The interest generated from the fund will be sent to Kibera and cover a majority of our core operating expenses, as well as allow our program budget to expand over time. Because donations to the endowment fund are counted as donations to the University, we have enlisted the support of UNC Development Office to reach out to the broad UNC alumni base in our fundraising efforts. The fund is going to afford us greater financial sustainability, as well as necessary programmatic flexibility, and we are very fortunate to have the University's support in this quest.

CFK has experimented in the past with offering a scholarship to UNC to a highly-motivated and involved youth with CFK. Unfortunately, that "beta test" was ultimately not successful. We may experiment with this model again in the future once our relationship with UNC has additional time to develop and grow, but for now we are focused on getting the greatest amount of resources to the greatest number of youth in Kibera, giving them an opportunity for to live in a violence-free enviorment and to develop as a community. When I volunteered on the ground in Kibera as an undergraduate student in 2002, CFK leadership in Kenya taught me that communicating clearly with the community about what CFK can and cannot do is fundamental to our sustainability and curbs unrealistic expectations. CFK does not want to create an unrealistic expectation that each child in Kibera be able to attend a university in the United States. What can be realistically expected is that each child in Kibera will have an opportunity to play soccer and develop leadership and other life skills through Carolina for Kibera that will help them succeed in Kibera, in Nairobi, in Africa and beyond.

Thanks again,
Emily

Dear Steve,

Many thanks for your encouragement of our work and for your thoughtful comment and question. CFK does, in fact, try to schedule its practices and tournaments with important holidays in mind. The Youth Sports Program Officer, Abdul "Cantar" Hussein, is Muslim and other key organizers of the tournaments represent each of the other ethnic groups in Kibera. CFK leadership works together when planning tournaments and other events and always strives to schedule for the most mutually convenient time for everyone or the majority of participants. In the event that one group is unable to participate in a scheduled clean-up, they know that they will always be able to make up that service during the next project. Essentially, CFK is about understanding and cooperation to make the most of each soccer tournament and community service project, even if not everyone can participate in every event.

Emily Pierce
CFK, Inc. Vice President