The History

Written by Impacting Youth Trust. Posted in History

Impacting Youth Trust was created by five individuals who grew up in Mathare slums in different eras in August 2013. They recognized a big need for an organization that would truly be started and run by people who understood the needs of the youth in the low income and marginalized areas.

The Founding Director,Nyokabi Njuguna during her studies came back to Kenya in July 2012 to work on her Post Graduate thesis on the youth in Mathare Constituency.During this period, she realised that there was a need to give the youth a voice in the society. She learnt first-hand the many issues that the youth were facing and their perception of how the society viewed them. They did not have a platform to express their needs, their stories and their dreams. The most resonating moment was when high schools kids admitted that their mentors were the criminals in their neighbourhoods because they led a comfortable life.

This observations shaped the idea of starting a trust that would harness the potential within the youth and mould them to be the best that they could be and would lead to more success stories coming from areas where society has given up on. Knowing this would be a passionate yet hard journey;Nyokabi sought the assistance of four more individuals who would be willing to start an organzation run by the youth and geared towards the youth. Together they generated priority programs that would be able to include the 15-35 age-group and would grow to include additional programs that would lead to feasible growth and development.

The trust is currently at the start up stage and is lobbying as many stakeholders as possible to get involved as to have a lasting impact in the program recipient.