One Man’s Garbage is Another Man’s Treasure

Perhaps one of the most heartwarming, and yet, heart breaking aid missions that Bestnet Europe Ltd. has ever had the opportunity to be associated with, concerns the story of a young Danish woman named Signe Møller, and her efforts to make the world a better place for the children of Africa.

Dedicated to making a difference in the world, 100% to the Children provides continuous, long-lasting support for local projects with the potential to become self-sustainable in the Mombassa Municipality of Kenya. According to Møller , “We want to help the most children, in the best way, for the longest time through facilitation of quality projects, across borders, in a non-bureaucratic, transparent and sustained manner.”  

http://www.100percent2thechildren.org/subpages/kibarani.asp   “Three thousand people are living on the brink – at and around stinking mountains of garbage. On the brink of life and human dignity. They are the inhabitants of Kibarani on the outskirts of Mombasa. Kibarani’s garbage dump is the final destination for most of the city’s garbage. Even though the garbage dump has no official sorting system, the garbage is still sorted piece by piece. Every time a garbage truck delivers a load, the residents congregate at the garbage dump to look for food to eat, clothes to wear or plastic and metal to sell. This is their only means of survival. And they struggle for food – every day people race to be the first to reach the new piles to see who will find the best food or the most plastic and metal. About three hundred people live at the garbage dump itself in small lean-tos made of plastic and cardboard found in the garbage. The rest live across the road but they all share the same fate: being dependent on the garbage dump to survive. Mothers with infants on their backs go through pile after pile of garbage, while the older children help them. The children live in the garbage, play in the garbage, eat the garbage and fall ill from the garbage.”

100% to the children has a vivid description of school’s locale listed on its website at

Everything from establishing a PO Box to purchasing land is virtually impossible for them without being a registered Kenyan NGO. In September 2009, immediately after the news that the land had been sold, 100% to the Children- Africa began the formal registration process to be recognized as an independent NGO with the Kenya NGO Co-ordination Board.  Signe Møller and her staff at 100% to the Children hope that the registration process will be completed in time to help the Kimbari villagers. 100% to the children has attempted to find reasonable solutions to help resolve the unknown future of the Kimbari residents.  Their results have been hindered by the fact that 100% to the Children is a Danish NGO and not an NGO registered in Kenya.  

In the late summer of 2009, the Kimbari residents received devastating news.  The village and garbage dump have been sold out from beneath them.  A businessman who purchased the land has decided to clear out the dump, and the village, and to destroy the Kimbari Nursery School, and to build an industrial plant in its place. By the Fall of 2010, the area residents will be required to leave this area and these destitute families will lose their meager homes, their community and the only school their children have ever known.

It is a pure testament to their desire to improve their children’s lives that the parents living in and around the garbage dump started the Kimbari Nursery School of over 150 students on their own.  Fortunately for the children, 100% to the Children took over the school’s operating costs in June 2008, and has been providing support in the form of nutrition, health and education. “100% to the Children makes sure that all of the children receive two healthy meals a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.  100% to the Children has a health team who visit the school every other week. At present, the team is made up of a voluntary Danish medical student and a Kenyan clinical officer (a cross between a doctor and a nurse). Twice a month, they visit the school to offer treatment to all the children in the area. The treatments have been a huge success and the team often treats up to thirty children a day. The children are afflicted with a wide range of ailments ranging from infections, open sores, and malaria to malnutrition and diarrhoea – illnesses which unfortunately were often fatal before we started up the health programme.”

In September 2009, Bestnet Europe donated 170 Netprotect long lasting insecticidal mosquito nets to 100% to the Children for distribution to 150 children at the Kimbari Nursery School located on the outskirts of a garbage dump in Kimbari, Mombassa, Kenya. 

Signe Møller founded the Danish NGO  100% to the Children, in 2008, with her own life savings.  For the last 2 years, Signe and  the organization have been assisting a community of about three thousand individuals living under extreme adverse conditions in the village of Kimbari, Mombassa, Kenya.