CFK Africa

Led by Kenyans and advised by American and Kenyan volunteers, CFK Africa's primary mission is to work with community members to improve public health, education outcomes, and economic opportunities in informal settlements in Kibera.

CFK Africa's philosophy is grounded in the concept of participatory development. Solutions to problems involving poverty are possible only if those affected by it drive development. Concerned outsiders can help by mobilizing communities, advising, networking, and providing resources.  However, the local community possesses the knowledge and motivation necessary to solve its own problems.

As a registered nonprofit in the U.S. and a registered NGO in Kenya, CFK Africa is led by executive director, Jeffrey Okoro, who reports to a joint board of directors composed of both Kenyan and American volunteers. CFK Africa co-founder, Rye Barcott, currently serves as the board chair. In 2020, CFK Africa convened an advisory council,[1] a diverse group of 22 international leaders, including 64th U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (in memoriam), former CDC Director Dr. Bill Roper, retired US Representative, David Price, Isis Nyong'o Madison, a Partner at Asphalt & Ink; Co-Founder, WomenWork Kenya, Kathleen McGinn, Ph.D. a Cahners-Rabb Professor of Business Administration; Co-Unit Head, Negotiation, Organizations & Markets at Harvard Business School, Jesse Moore, the CEO and co-founder of M-KOPA, and Megan Smith, 3rd Chief Technology Officer of the United States and Co-Founder of the Malala Fund, to help the organization improve and expand its services in informal settlements.

Time magazine named CFK Africa a "Hero of Global Health" in 2005[2] and ABC News named CFK Africa co-founder, Rye Barcott, Person of the Year[3] in 2006 for his work in Kibera and his service as a U.S. marine. Time for Kids featured CFK on the cover of its March 30, 2007, edition.[4] In 2004 Canadian Musician Sarah McLachlan concluded her award-winning music video "World on Fire" with footage of CFK Africa's soccer tournaments and medical clinic in Kibera. Two years later CFK Africa published LIGHTBOX: Expressions of Hope from Young Women in the Kibera Slum. This powerful book of narratives and photographs from disposable cameras gives voice to the young and courageous women of CFK Africa's Binti Pamoja (Daughters United) program.[5] In 2007 then Senator Barack Obama visited CFK Africa's youth center and gave a landmark speech calling for ethnic unity and education in Kibera.[6] CFK Africa played a crucial role in providing emergency aid during the Kenyan post-election violence in 2008, and for its efforts the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum honored CFK Africa as its recipient of the Reflections of Hope Award in a ceremony with the former ABC World News Anchor Bob Woodruff and his wife Lee.[7]

In 2008, CFK Africa received a $1 million grant for capacity building and income generation expansion from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Dr. Jill Biden visited CFK Africa's Binti Pamoja Centre in 2010 as she sought to promote women's rights, girls' empowerment, and gender equality around the world.[8] In 2011, Barcott published It Happened on the Way to War, which juxtaposes military service and social entrepreneurship.[9] The book was chosen as required reading for freshman classes at NC State University (2012)[10] and East Carolina University (2013).[11] In 2012, Kathleen McGinn of Harvard Business School profiled CFK Africa as the topic for the school's first ever multi-media case study.[12] McGinn joined the board of directors in 2014 and later served as CFK Africa's board chair from 2017 to 2020. In 2012, CFK Africa's Sports for Development program was the focus of the award-winning documentary, Without a Fight, which explored how soccer can facilitate social change in Kibera. Susan Mueni Waita, a participant in CFK Africa's Girls' Empowerment Program, received a Queen's Young Leaders Award in 2016 for her work supporting girls and women in Kibera.[13] She founded an organization called Making a Difference (MAD) Sisters to educate girls on sexual health. In 2018, Rye Barcott delivered the commencement address at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.[14]  

In recent years, CFK Africa published a cookbook which celebrates culture, educates on nutrition, and supports severely malnourished children living in informal settlements. The cookbook, Karibu Mezani was produced in 2021 by CFK Africa with contributions from CFK Africa's staff, board, members, partners, and alumni. In 2021, CFK Africa produced a published a documentary, CFK Celebrates 20 Years of Service, to showcase their work in Kenya over the past 20 years. In 2022, CFK Africa partnered with MIT for the Leveraging Evidence for Action to Promote Change (LEAP) Program, designed to provide guidance on how to implement, measure, and eventually scale specific interventions to improve school attendance in informal settlements in Kenya. In 2023, CFK Africa supported the Kibera Girls Soccer Academy, the first soccer team from an informal settlement to enter the Women's Premiere League in Kenya. Additionally, in 2023, U.S. First Lady Jill Biden’s February visit to Kenya included a stop in Kibera, where she reconnected with a member of the inaugural cohort of CFK Africa’s peer educators, who she had first met in 2010 on a tour of Kibera, and stayed in touch with over the decades.

Since its inception in 2001, CFK Africa has grown from a small sports-for-development initiative and a one-room clinic to a leading NGO delivering high-quality primary health services to thousands of patients, developing hundreds of impressive young leaders through education and youth development programming, and partnering with top-tier institutions to facilitate participatory research and inform policy. Under its primary health care pillar, CFK Africa focuses on adolescent and youth health, clinical services, maternal and child health, nutrition, and WaSH programming. Under its education and livelihood pillar, the organization runs a scholarship program, work readiness training, school improvement efforts, and the Best Schools Initiative.  

CFK Africa co-hosts and operates one of the CDC’s largest overseas population-based infection disease surveillance (PBIDS) platforms that measures and responds to infectious diseases amount ~30,000 residents in Kibera. Their work with the CDC and KEMRI has contributed to the production of nearly 100 peer-reviewed journal articles.

The late Tabitha Atieno Festo, Founder of CFK's Tabitha Medical Clinic

CFK Africa was cofounded by Rye Barcott (then an undergraduate at UNC studying under Anthropologist Jennifer Coffman), Salim Mohamed (a community organizer) and the late Tabitha Festo (a nurse). In the summer of 2001, Barcott teamed up with Salim Mohamed who was managing the Information and Management Department of the Mathare Youth Sports Association in another informal settlement in Nairobi. Barcott also reunited with the late Tabitha Atieno Festo, a registered nurse and resident of Kibera who had established a small medical clinic from a grant of $26 that Barcott had given her the previous summer to sell vegetables.

CF0K Africa received its initial funding from hundreds of American citizens in addition to a $30,000 start-up grant from the Ford Foundation. A year later, two undergraduates from the United States, Karen Austrian and Emily Verellen, volunteered in Kibera with CFK Africa and helped young women in Kibera create CFK Africa's third program, The Binti Pamoja (Daughters United) Centre, establishing a safe space for young girls to address issues unique to them. In 2007, the United Nations recognized the Binti Pamoja Centre as one of the world's premiere programs addressing the unique challenges and needs of adolescent girls.[15]

CFK Africa opened its first 24/7 medical clinic in 2002 and expanded its health program to include home health visits and health education through Community Health Volunteers (CHVs) and Youth Peer Providers (YPPs). CFK Africa also launched its Sports for Development Program and established the first all-girls soccer team in Kibera in 2002, with the goal of bringing together male and female youth of different ethnicities to promote community cooperation, peace and conflict resolution and development through sports. In 2007, CFK Africa expanded and relocated its clinic to the center of Kibera, renaming it the Tabitha Medical Clinic in honor of the late Tabitha Festo. In its first full year providing healthcare services in partnership with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Tabitha Clinic provided healthcare services to Kibera residents through more than 35,000 patient visits, averaging about 140 visits daily. CFK Africa also introduced a continuing medical education program and capacity building training programs and hired auxiliary doctors and nurses to be "on call" for the clinic in emergencies.  

To provide more holistic care for the Kibera community, CFK Africa opened the Lishe Bora Mtaani Nutrition Centre in 2013, serving malnourished children under the age of five through an eight-week feeding and vitamin supplementation program. In 2018, CFK Africa opened the new three-story Binti Pamoja Centre, housing arts, reproductive health education, and girls' empowerment activities for girls in the community. The centre also serves as CFK Africa's center of operations. After gaining community feedback, CFK Africa expanded again in 2019, opening the Young Health and Wellness Centre to specifically serve the unique needs of youth in the community and the Tabitha Maternity Centre to serve the needs of mothers. During the COVID-19 pandemic, CFK Africa partnered with the CDC and the Kenya Ministry of Health to lead coronavirus sampling and contact tracing efforts in Kibera.[16]  

In 2022, CFK Africa launched their new name, brand, and website; CFK Africa. They announced a new strategic plan that included expanding to 24 informal settlements across 8 counties in Kenya. CFK Africa's Adolescent and Youth Health improves the health and well-being of youth in informal settlements in Kenya, with over 10,080 youth enrolled in psychosocial support services and 639 youth screened for health conditions including cervical cancer, diabetes, and hypertension in 2022. Their clinical services, which aim to improve health and well-being of people living in Kibera and their access to affordable health care serves over 27,000 patients at the Tabitha Medical Clinic annually, including screenings for various health conditions including cervical cancer, HIV/AIDS, and TB treatment.  

CFK Africa’s Maternal & Child Health (MCH) program provides children with wellness services, including immunizations, treatment for childhood illnesses, and nutrition support. The Tabitha Maternity Home sees about 45 deliveries a month managed by skilled healthcare workers with 0 maternal or neonatal deaths. Its nutrition programs annually screen around 30,000 children for malnutrition. Their Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WaSH) programming improves sanitation and hygiene practices to ensure that all people living in informal settlements have access to adequate and equitable WASH resources. In 2022, 34 newly constructed hand washing stations in schools and at a health facility served over 40,000 people.

In 2022, CFK Africa’s focus on youth leadership development impacted 418 youth receiving life skills training, 147 youth with digital literacy training, and 219 youth completing Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET).^[1]

CFK Africa has a Platinum Transparency rating on Candid and a top four-star rating on Charity Navigator.

• Official website