Peter Kwame Mwakio
Promoting equal opportunity in Kenya by providing promising, low-income students with scholarships, mentoring, and career guidance that prepares them for careers and to serve as a link between their community and professional networks.
Kwame Mwakio is a Co-Founder and Programs Director of Hatua Network Organization, which works to promote equal opportunity among youth from economically excluded communities in Mombasa, Kenya. Hatua provides high school and university scholarships, as well as mentoring and career guidance to prepare youth to enter professional careers and to serve as links between their communities and professional networks. The organization is currently serving 500 youth from low-income families, 70 of whom have graduated from universities and are earning three times their family income combined, thus contributing to the economic development of their families and country. Hatua’s mentoring program focuses on the character development of youth during their formative high school years, and provides additional leadership development during their gap year and professional development during university. Over the next five years, Kwame aims to expand Hatua Network Organization’s reach to cover all four locations of Mombasa, which includes 1.2 million residents, and to provide 1,600 scholarships annually and graduate 200 students from university every year. Kwame received an associate’s degree in liberal arts from the Kenyan National Coast Polytechnic and a second associate’s degree in social sciences from the Amani Institute in Kenya. Kwame was awarded the African Visionary Fellowship from the Segal Family Foundation, which offers capacity building, mentorship, exposure and technical support for extraordinary African changemakers.
Biography current as of 2019-2020 program year