The Olympics primary school and the Kibra community are set to benefit from a 66 million multi-purpose pitch starting January 2024.
The Restoring Issachar's Generation (RIG East Africa) head Cynthia Nyamai on Friday started her 488 kilometres journey from Mombasa to Nairobi to raise funds to build a multi-purpose pitch at the Olympics primary school in Kibra, Nairobi county.
Speaking in Mombasa during the flagging off of the 488 for Kibra project at Mama Ngina Waterfront, Nyamai said that they aim to come up with an international standard pitch which can even host AFCON games.
"I will be walking 488 kilometres from Mombasa to Nairobi to raise awareness and also raise the funds to build a multi-purpose pitch which will cost sh 66,630,000," she said.
Nyamai, who is working with the RIG East Africa, a group of professionals and Christians doing development programs in partnership with Kibra Member of Parliament Peter Orero said that so far they have collected Sh2 Million.
The groundbreaking of the pitch which is supposed to be ready before schools open took place last week and the work is already in progress.
She said that they came up with the project idea after they visited the school and found out that it has a lot of challenges including lack of a proper pitch where children can play.
"So we saw it better to look for money in order to start a project of constructing for them a multi-purpose pitch which they will use to play, rugby, netball and football,"
"The current ground where the children use as the playing ground is in bad shape, they get hurt a lot because of the rocks. Within Kibra itself, there are 36 football teams for the yyouthwho do not have a decent place where they can do their practice," she said.
The pitch will also give the children and youth of Kibra an opportunity to interact with international teams.
In the pitch, she aid they will put astetars because natural grass cannot grow there due to the high number of children in the school.
The school has a population of 5,583 students.
There will also be lighting meaning the teams and children using the field will be able to play during the day and also at night.
"After that we will put up the anticlined fence around the pitch therefore we are calling upon all Kenyan to come out so that we can do this project together" she said.
Nyamai said that they have been getting help from locals and leadership of kibra led by the MP Peter Orero
The project has also created job opportunities yo the locals who are already working on the ground.
She called upon well wishers to help in raising yhe yunds.
"This project requires all of us to work together because we would like it to be done by the end of December. The children will find a new pitch when they go back to school, and because of the weather, we have to finish the project as soon as possible,"
This will benefit not only the school but the whole community of Kibra, it will be a very safe environment for the children," she said.
Kibra Member of Parliament Peter Orero said that during his campaigns, one of the agenda was to help youths in sports because he personally is a sports person.
"Sports is one of the agenda that gave me the MP seat and that is why together with RIG East Africa, we have started the project which we call #488 for Kibra,"
"As we will be walking together, we want to Kenyans to help us raise the funds so that the children of Kibra can get opportunity to have a playing ground which will help them build talent," he said.
He said the pitch will have good lighting systems and a place where people can sit and relax during the day.