Dear Friends,
There’s a number that stays with me whenever I think about the Kiandutu neighborhood of Thika, Kenya. For every 100 children who begin secondary school there, as many as 60 to 70 do not make it to graduation.
If we let that land for a moment, we see that 60 to 70 of 100 young people who start with hope—who show up, who try—are undone by poverty, by instability, by a world that never gave them a strong enough foundation to stand on.
Charles is one who stayed. And I want you to meet him.
Watch the video here on Youtube
Charles grew up in Kiandutu, an informal settlement where the odds are stacked high against young people from the start. When you watch the short video he recorded for us, you’ll hear him speak with a steadiness that is hard-won — not the confidence of someone who had it easy, but the quiet strength of someone who has weathered hardship. That shaping happened, in no small part, because of a program your generosity helps sustain.
Through our partnership with the Tanari Trust, KCEF supports two interwoven programs benefitting the children in our schools across Kenya: CPR (Creating Positive Relationships) for 6th graders and ROPES (Rite of Passage Experiences) for 9th graders. These aren’t after-school extras. In many ways, they offer the most essential things a young person in a place like Kiandutu can receive: someone who sits with them, teaches them who they are, and helps them discover what they’re capable of.
Ephantas (in the yellow shirt) is one of our Tanari Trust leaders. He walks with the students for 15 weeks, mentoring and guiding them. This is how he describes the programs:
ROPES walks students through pivotal transitions in adolescence — the kind of moments that, without guidance, can become turning points toward self-destruction or disengagement. CPR teaches the fundamentals of healthy relationships: how to choose trustworthy friends, how to lead with integrity, how to treat yourself and others with the dignity God intended. Both programs are built on a foundation of Scripture and faith, not as an add-on, but as the very core of what it means to grow into a person of character. We mentor students for 15 weeks, and then the program culminates in a hike and a camping experience with their parents. For many, it is the first time they have ever left the slum and spent time in nature.
Before going through these programs, many students struggle in ways that don’t always show up in report cards. They lack confidence. They make decisions out of fear or desperation. They don’t know how to ask for help or how to offer it. After consistent mentorship — through teaching Biblical truths, through personal interaction, through someone simply showing up for them week after week — we watch young people change. Their relationships improve. Their grades improve. Their sense of who they are improves.
Charles’ story has stayed with me. A young man who went through our ROPES program and carried those lessons with him into high school. By his third year, his peers elected him Head Boy of his school. But what moved us most wasn’t his title — it was what he did next. He turned around and taught the entire school what he had learned about creating positive relationships. One young man, shaped by one program, reaching an entire school community.
That is the ripple effect your partnership makes possible.
I think about Ephantas’ role in Charles’ life, and I think about the 30 to 40 out of every 100 students like Charles who do graduate— who carry the resilience and character formed in programs like these back into families, churches, and communities that need them desperately. This is what Christian character formation looks like in practice. It is slow, faithful, incarnational work. It is exactly the kind of investment the world tends to overlook.
But you don’t overlook it. And we thank you for that.
Please watch Charles’ video when you have a moment. His words will tell you more than I can.
With deepest gratitude,
