Every organisation says it is accountable. Fewer actually sit down and show you the numbers. This post is our attempt to do that plainly, for the year ended 31st December 2025.

We received KES 1,642,050 in grant income during 2025. It came from two funders: CRIFUND, which supported our digital literacy work, and KidsRights Foundation, which backed our neurodiversity inclusion programme. We spent KES 2,157,950 in total, leaving a deficit of KES 515,900 that was absorbed by funds brought forward. Our net assets at year end stood at KES 700,000, represented entirely by the equipment and furniture we use to run our work. We had no cash in the bank at close of year.

That last sentence is worth sitting with. Running a deficit is not a failure of management. It is often the evidence that a programme took the work seriously and did not underspend to look good on paper. But it also means we enter 2026 without a buffer, and that matters. We will come back to that.

Programme One: Navigating the Digital Mind

This programme, funded by CRIFUND to the tune of KES 1,142,050, focused on digital literacy and cyber-bullying awareness for vulnerable children in Mathare and surrounding areas. The work ran in partnership with local schools and was built around three spending areas.

We spent KES 312,800 on materials and resources, the workbooks, printed guides, and reference packs that teachers and learners actually hold in their hands. We spent another KES 625,000 on workshops and teacher training, which was the heart of the programme. A child learning about safe internet use needs a teacher who understands it first. And we spent KES 312,800 on digital tools and devices, getting tablets and basic computing equipment into spaces where children had never touched a keyboard.

The decision to spend roughly equal amounts on physical materials and digital equipment was deliberate. You cannot teach digital safety in the abstract. Children need to be online, and then learn to navigate that space with support.

Programme Two: Seeing Differently

KidsRights Foundation granted us KES 500,000 to run Seeing Differently, our neurodiversity inclusion programme. This one is harder to explain quickly, because neurodiversity is still a concept that many Kenyan schools are only beginning to encounter.

Put simply: some children learn differently. A child with dyslexia, ADHD, autism, or sensory processing differences is not a slow learner. They are a learner whose classroom has not yet been built for them. Seeing Differently worked with teachers to change that, at least in a small number of classrooms in our area.

Spending went to teacher training and workshops (KES 225,000), classroom materials and adaptations (KES 150,000), sensory simulation activities (KES 72,000), and educational resources (KES 100,350). The sensory simulation activities deserve a mention here. These are structured exercises that help neurotypical teachers physically experience what it feels like to process information differently. A teacher who has worn noise-cancelling headphones while trying to read instructions does not forget that lesson quickly.

What the Deficit Actually Means

Our total programme spend was KES 1,797,950 against grant income of KES 1,642,050. Administrative costs of KES 360,000, covering salaries for our project manager and two workshop facilitators, volunteer support, and depreciation on our equipment, brought total expenditure to KES 2,157,950.

The KES 515,900 deficit was not unexpected. Programmes of this nature routinely carry costs that grants do not fully cover, particularly in their first operational year when equipment purchases front-load the spending. Our fixed assets, valued at KES 700,000 net of depreciation, represent real capacity: projectors, computers, furniture, and shelving that will serve future programmes without needing to be purchased again.

What the deficit does mean is that we need to enter 2026 with renewed grant relationships and at least one bridge funding arrangement in place before the second quarter. We are working on that now.

An Honest Word About Scale

Mathare is home to somewhere between 500,000 and 700,000 people depending on whose count you use. Our two programmes reached a fraction of the children who need what we offer. We know that. We are not going to claim otherwise.

What we can say is that the children who were in the room changed. Teachers who attended training changed. And some of those changes will ripple outward in ways we cannot measure from a balance sheet.

If you are a funder, a partner, or someone who has been watching us from a distance, we would welcome a conversation about 2026. Our programmes are proven. Our team is here. What we need is the fuel to keep going.