One Saturday afternoon  in mid 2023, we (Peter, Robert and Joseph) had taken out our children for a play session at a location in Nairobi. Once they settled in, we found a spot to sit and, as it often happens with us, a gripping discussion ensued.

We reflected upon how incredibly lucky we were, the three of us having grown in varying levels of poverty to be able to take our children to such a place just so they could play together and have fun. We worried whether, in their relatively privileged upbringing they would get to learn and live by the same ideals that had been relentlessly instilled in us by our own parents, teachers and the society while growing up – hard work, respect, modesty, resilience and frugality in the use of resources.

Even more, we worried about the many children across the country, who were presently facing similar or worse circumstances as ourselves growing up. Children from families that had been caught in the vicious cycle of poverty with no real hope of breaking out.

Would those children surmount the numerous obstacles in their wake to make a life for themselves? Would they get as lucky as we got? Would they be able to compete effectively for future educational and career  opportunities, in a pitch ground massively tilted against them?  Would they get to enjoy their childhood in some small ways at least?

We wondered if there was something we could do, and inspire others to do, to tilt back the scales in favour of  those children, in a direct, meaningful, scalable and sustainable way.

Then we discovered that the most effective way to help those children was to reach out to them directly, to listen to them, to engage them, to hear their hopes and dreams, their challenges, and then to involve them in a mission that we could jointly pursue. That afternoon, the seed of “Involve the Children” was sowed.