Outside Nairobi, in rural Njathaini, the Starehe Girls Centre offers a transformative experience to 127 remarkable young women. This charitable national boarding school gives girls from economically disadvantaged backgrounds the care, academics, and practical skills to overcome poverty.
To boost its mission of self-reliance, the school is launching a six-month high-potential broiler-chicken production initiative. Funding for this project goes to purchasing chicks, feed, veterinarian, and labour costs.
This initiative will transition the broiler chicken project from a one-time pilot project into a continuous, three-cycle annual operation that will provide the school with a reliable source of year-round income.
Standardizing this three-cycle rotation will create a predictable supply of high-quality protein for students’ daily meals while steadily reducing the Centre’s reliance on external food purchases.
The harvest will supply the school kitchen’s poultry needs, providing students with consistent, high-quality protein while cutting vendor costs. Over 100 students each year will directly participate in the broiler-production process, seamlessly blending agribusiness into their daily education. By using existing infrastructure and practicing efficient resource management, the operation will maximize output while keeping waste to a minimum.
Chalice is committed to being excellent stewards of your generosity. To safeguard this project against everyday farming challenges, the school has implemented several proactive protections.
To counter rising feed costs, the school is committed to buying inputs in bulk during favourable market conditions. Starehe Centre is also diversifying its market connections so local price fluctuations won’t disrupt its steady income.
To ensure the project runs smoothly and transparently, Starehe has further established a clear structure for daily operations and oversight. Internal farm staff, directly supported by the school’s agriculture teacher, will manage day-to-day technical and husbandry concerns. The school administration will maintain direct oversight, enforcing strict funding controls and policy direction to ensure total transparency and maximum resource efficiency.
As the Starehe community grows, providing students with nutritious meals has become a large portion of its budget. To build a more sustainable future, it is launching an innovative poultry project. Running through October 2026, the initiative focuses on producing fresh eggs for the girls’ daily meals, boosting overall nutrition, and reducing reliance on external food sources.
Building on a 2022 project, this new initiative adds proper nesting areas for more consistent egg-laying in the poultry house and expands the area for hens to roam. These cage-free operations are more sustainable and humane and allow birds to engage naturally. The new space is also essential for preventing disease and contamination, flock health, egg quality, and upholds strict food safety and bird welfare standards.
The simple durable structure — a concrete-slab floor and walls, and metal roofing — minimizes maintenance costs. Humane poultry farming helps reduce the environmental impacts of factory farming, which crams birds into confined spaces, resulting in concentrated, toxic waste that contributes to groundwater contamination. The Centre will use the organic waste as natural fertilizer for vegetable crops, creating a sustainable agricultural environment.
To ensure financial transparency and operational efficiency, the project has a clear leadership structure: the Centre’s agriculture teacher directs all technical and daily farming operations, while school administration provides financial oversight and policy direction. Every donor gift is managed with the utmost care and transparency. To safeguard against market or labour fluctuations, the Centre sources high-quality materials locally and monitors expenditures closely.
Program Location: Nairobi Site, Kenya
Program Code: HDP-KSL0226
Budget in Canadian Funds: $ $12,666.52 CAD
DONATEPlease note that any donations that exceed the request will be used to fund other community projects that may arise.