- She said the contaminated ground would accumulate human waste, used condoms and beer bottles, making it unsafe for children.
By Rose Wangui
A playground that was once a health hazard for learners at Ngei Comprehensive School in Lang’ata, Nairobi, has been transformed into a street sports hub, offering children a safe space to play, develop their talents and explore opportunities beyond the classroom.
The 6,500-square-metre sports hub, opened yesterday, has reclaimed previously unusable land that school administrators said had been repeatedly flooded with raw sewage from damaged sewer lines in the surrounding estate.
Lucy Ngode, a deputy headteacher at the school, said the situation had posed a serious health risk to learners for years, despite repeated attempts to address the problem.
“The ground initially was swampy, and not swampy from clean water. It was waste from the surrounding,” Ngode said, explaining that damaged sewer lines had been discharging waste into the school compound.
She said the contaminated ground would accumulate human waste, used condoms and beer bottles, making it unsafe for children.
“It has been a thorn in the flesh. The government came in; they have been rebuilding the wall for several times. But now, when the project was launched here, they reclaimed the unused land to be very useful,” she said.
For Ngode, however, the transformation goes beyond sanitation. The new facility addresses a longstanding shortage of safe recreational spaces for children living in the surrounding informal settlements.
She said many learners had previously resorted to playing along roads because they lacked access to proper playgrounds, exposing them to accidents.
“Most of our children are coming from the surrounding slums. They don’t have even a playground. So sometimes you even find them playing along the road, which is very bad, jeopardising their lives,” she said.
The new hub is expected to give children a place to discover and nurture their abilities in sports and other creative pursuits.
The sports hub is also intended to provide young people with a space to interact, develop skills and build relationships through sport.
Denmark’s ambassador to Kenya, Stephan Schønemann said the initiative was about more than creating a sporting facility, emphasising its potential to strengthen social bonds among children and young people.
“We’re engaging in this because it’s simply a way of bringing kids together and have fun doing sports, but also grow as a group, as a community,” the ambassador said.
For GAME, which supports the development of street sports spaces, the hub is designed to provide an accessible environment where young people can meet, participate in sport and develop skills both on and off the court.
“Public spaces have an ability to bring people together across divides. With this new user designed sports facility, Nairobi's children and youth are given a high quality and very affordable space to meet around their passion for street sports,” said Simon Prahm of GAME.
“Activated by local youth volunteers, it will provide opportunities for skills development both on and off the court.”
The impact of the new facility is already being felt among learners, some of whom see it as an opportunity to pursue their sporting ambitions in an environment with adequate space and coaching.
Kuei Yournew, a Grade 8 pupil at the school, said the facility had given her renewed enthusiasm for basketball and school.
“This has to be one of the best days of my life. I play basketball. Having such a facility where we have enough space and coaches to train us is a dream come true for me,” she said.