7 STRONG YEARS OF TRANSFORMING GENERATIONS

AWAKE THE GAME CHANGER - C.E.O's 7TH YEAR ANNIVERSARY MESSAGE

Why Awake Youth Initiative? Let me start with a premise…. . Africa’s future progress, or the lack of it, is inextricably linked to what is happening in African learning institution and youth based organizations today. Let me explain with a statistic. Less than 10% of the young people in sub-Saharan Africa attend college. This percentage is so small that you can be sure that those few Africans in college will, by definition, be running the show in 20 or 30 years. The upcoming leaders in business and government—the professionals, engineers, and managers who will be responsible for tomorrow’s infrastructure, education, health care, and other sectors—are sitting in a college classroom today.

Consider then, in the near future, whether this influential group will play a positive role in creating a healthier, more productive, and more just future for Africa. Will they have strong ethics and a concern for the greater good, regardless of ethnicity, religion, gender, or class? Will they be innovative thinkers, ready to develop creative solutions? Will they have an entrepreneurial mindset, ready to work hard and help Africa’s private sector thrive? How can Africa’s future leaders possibly learn to think and behave differently if we don’t prepare them  as changemakers? If we want different results, we must try something different.

That was the motivation with which we set out to start Awake Youth Initiative nearly 5 years ago. Our vision: to transform youth livelihood and leadership in marginalized communities. With input from support network Ashoka East Africa, we created a comprehensive 5 months leadership and entrepreneurship program, complemented with 3 months of mentorship, preparing youth leaders as changemakers with the skills of New leadership, Changemaking, Teamwork and Empathy.

Awake launched with 20 youth leaders, half of whom began to champion their changemaking projects in 2016. For the last 7 years, Awake is proud to have worked with 2733+ changemakers in 4 communities in Nairobi. In 2022, we received massive grant support from We Are Family Foundation, this grant supported 150 young changemakers receive Awake Lead Young training's, 200 grassroot social entrepreneurs participate in the Awake convening on 20th December and acquisition of assets to support Awake's operations.

We successfully launched Awake board with expertise drawn from business and social impact space. This team of changemakers will help Awake achieve its 2021-2025 scaling goals.

I am grateful for Awake’s growing reputation, and proud of the work of our changemakers and staffs. But Africa needs even more from Awake, and needs more youth led organizations like Awake. Living in Africa today are changemakers whose skills when awakened will set Africa’s course over the next 20 to 30 years. When more organizations follow Awake’s model and continue to support Awake's work, we will see a better future for Africa and for the world. 

Meshack Otieno - C.E.O, Awake.