Challenge
16 million Kenyans survive on less than $1 a day, often working as roadside vendors, day laborers, and more. They earn barely enough to cover 2 meals per day and rent a single room for their entire household.
Escaping this poverty is hard because education—the clearest path to opportunity—is unaffordable. Most Kenyan children finish government-subsidized primary school, but only half complete secondary, as even the lowest-cost day schools cost $200+ each year. Primary school is not enough to break into the modern economy; without access to further education, youth face unemployment, or remain in informal work with low wages and no security. Poverty persists, and is passed down from one generation to the next.
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To break this cycle, it is not enough to raise incomes modestly. Only when young people earn enough to lift themselves out of poverty and pay school fees for their future children do they and their families escape poverty for good.
Solution
Hatua recruits academically strong primary school students whose families cannot afford secondary school. Selected students come from households earning an average of $0.57 per person, per day. Each student receives:
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Full scholarships through high school and university.
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Soft skills training. During school breaks, students complete structured coursework that builds communication, collaboration, problem-solving, emotional intelligence, and responsibility—the skills employers say are most critical for success.
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Professional mentoring and networks. Each university student is matched with a mentor in their chosen career field. Mentors offer guidance, share connections, and help students secure internships and jobs.
Graduates emerge ready to thrive in the workforce. They earn steady incomes, support relatives through school, and raise their own children free from poverty.
Last update: 2025
Impact
92% of Hatua alumni who graduated more than a year ago are working, and earning an average of $4800 per year—nearly 5x their whole family’s income when they joined.
Supporting one student through Hatua’s full journey costs $7,000 [tag: FL cost per output]. As of 2025, Hatua Network alumni are also paying school fees for 346 relatives. Based on this data, Hatua Network estimates that over their lifetime, each graduate will lift about 7 people out of poverty. That means every ~$1,035 invested in Hatua Network is projected to free one person from poverty.
Looking forward
Hatua seeks to raise an additional $1.5 million over the next five years. Their aims:
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Grow access. Hatua will increase its annual new student intake from 120 to 160 students, which will increase the number of young people Hatua serves by 70% over five years.
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Improve outcomes. Strive for excellence by targeting bold benchmarks (including 95% alumni employment at an average annual income above $6,000.)
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Measure results. Commission an independent study to track impact across generations.
These goals reflect Hatua’s conviction that the most sustainable path out of poverty is investing in individuals, who then unlock opportunity for their communities. Ultimately, Hatua Network seeks not just to reduce poverty for the families they serve, but to end it.
Leadership
Peter Kwame Mwakio and Gabrielle Fondiller
Co-founders and Directors
Gabrielle is from Brooklyn, NY, and first visited Kenya in 2006 while studying at Wesleyan University. Together with Kwame, who grew up in Likoni, Mombasa, they conducted research to to learn about the challenges faced by microentrepreneurs whose income could not meet their families’ basic needs. They heard the same wish from everyone they interviewed: to provide their children with education so they could live a better life. That year, Kwame and Gabrielle raised funds to cover school fees for the children of seven street vendors; this work later became Hatua’s first program. Gabrielle later earned a Master’s in Management Science from Stanford's Graduate School of Business and received awards for leadership and social innovation, while Kwame earned recognition as a Segal African Visionary Fellow, and completed a postgraduate certificate in Strategic Leadership as an Obama Foundation Scholar at Columbia University.
