Vestergaard Frandsen Sponsors School in Nairobi’s Kibera Slum

Contact: Peter Cleary, Director of Communications, Vestergaard Frandsen

+1 347 653 5857  |  pc@vestergaard-frandsen.com

Vestergaard Frandsen Sponsors School in Nairobi’s Kibera Slum

Company Teams With Danish Handball Pros to Bring Stability and

Exercise Opportunities to Disadvantaged Kenyan Schoolchildren

21 December 2011, NAIROBI, KENYA—Earlier this month Vestergaard Frandsen joined with Danish professional handball players to support the Mashimoni Primary and Secondary Schools, located in Nairobi’s Kibera slum, one of the world’s largest. While members of Handball DK will teach students the sport of handball and provide them with equipment, Vestergaard Frandsen’s donation of US $30,000 will pay for all school-related costs for one year, including uniforms, lunches, and fees.

 Kibera is home to almost one million people, most of whom subsist on incredibly meagre income. Children in Kibera are subject to a number of social and health risks, and sport programmes are seen as one way to benefit the youth in the community.

“Kenyans’ athletic skills are globally recognised and appreciated—from the football pitches of Europe, to the streets of New York City where Kenyans seem to win the world’s most competitive marathon every year,” remarked Thomas Hansen, Vestergaard Frandsen’s regional director for East Africa, at a ceremony marking the partnership. “When our friends from Denmark told us of their plans to bring street handball to Africa, we knew Kenya, and Kibera in particular, would be a good fit. Street handball is a welcoming and friendly outlet to people of all abilities.”

Vestergaard Frandsen, which was founded in Denmark, seeks to mirror the Danish sports league’s programmatic commitment with a financial one. The company has invested in the school to help Kenya achieve the UN’s Millennium Development Goal 2—ensuring that, by 2015, children everywhere will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling. Vestergaard Frandsen has been an active presence in Kenya for 15 years, and in 2011 rolled out a massive campaign in the country’s Western Province that provided 880,000 households with the ability to purify their drinking water.

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Vestergaard Frandsen is a European company that operates under a unique “humanitarian entrepreneurship” business model, dedicated to creating and deploying technologies that improve the health of people in developing countries. This approach has turned corporate social responsibility into its core business, including strong support of the MDGs. Vestergaard Frandsen’s products are designed to prevent waterborne, vector-borne and neglected tropical diseases.  For more information about the company please visit www.vestergaard-frandsen.com.