SAN FRANCISCO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / May 5, 2023 / Charitable organization MLIFE has announced that, in light of its 5th anniversary, it has just broken ground on the construction of the MLIFE Center, which will host its headquarters in Juja, Kenya. The new facility will serve the company's mission of bringing educators to Africa to offer accelerated intercultural and skill transfer to young Kenyan adults.
The center will also serve as a transitional-age youth hub, and the campus will be the first of its kind in East and Central Africa. The MLIFE Center will have an open auditorium, an art and music studio, a game room, and a clubhouse/youth lounge with a Technology Academic Space. The center will also include accommodation facilities for MLIFE partners visiting Kenya wishing to extend their programming for over a month.
The new MLIFE Center will amplify the foundation's work of connecting youths in Kenya to those in San Francisco by expanding opportunities for ethnically and economically diverse young people in San Francisco and Kenya to connect, network, and learn from one another.
The headquarters will include an integrated mental health center with a confidential counseling space, a commercial-grade kitchen, and a café with a rooftop deck. As part of the fundraising campaign for the new center, members of the MLIFE leadership team will also conduct a goodwill tour of Africa, starting in West and East Africa (Ghana and Kenya), followed by Southern and Northern Africa (Namibia and Egypt). The purpose is to spread awareness of the organization and what it can offer to underprivileged California families and students.
MLIFE Foundation began in 2017 as a reading program for children experiencing learning poverty, defined by the World Bank as the inability to read and write a simple sentence by age 10. According to World Bank's most recent data, more than 53% of children globally experience learning poverty, with higher numbers in emerging and developing economies.
Founder and CEO of MLIFE, Mwangi Mukami, a humanitarian, writer, and leadership coach, states that the new headquarters will serve as a base of operations for the charity's African outreach. In October 2022, he spoke on behalf of MLIFE on a local Bay Area television station, sharing the story of growing up in poverty, how he founded MLIFE, and how the organization is reaching out to today's impoverished youth. "Education can be a tool for liberation, primarily when it encompasses experience and learning over completion and performance," said Mukami during the interview.
The media coverage has helped MLIFE spread awareness of global poverty and organize educational travel opportunities for those in need. The new center will also help to support MLIFE's two age-specific programs, the Learning Enrichment Acceleration Program (LEAP), which allows children and transitional-age youths to develop skills in reading, thinking, writing, and speaking, and the Leaders of Openness, Virtue, and Empathy (MLOVE), which focuses on guidance for transitional youth 18-24, who are considering college, employment, or apprenticeship. Companies such as We Are Guru, a Bay area communications agency, are project funders.
Mukami says that the new Kenya center will also help support MLIFE's three community support programs, which offer interfaith education and dialogue, safe space for LGBTQIA+ individuals, substance use and mental health support, and help needy families with emergency funds and supplies.
California's under-resourced youths will benefit from the program through intercultural and skill transfer exchange with Kenyan children. This June, a fully-funded cohort of California's NextGen leaders will depart for Kenya for a 10-day trip to learn about Africa's cultural heritage and connect with their peers. This initiative, supported in part by the Rugged Elegance Foundation, Qrius Pay, and Hyphen8tion Studios, aims to foster intercultural connectedness, promote cross-cultural exchange and skills transfer, and equip young leaders with the tools to make meaningful changes on both sides of the Atlantic.
"We receive 65% of our budget from our past beneficiaries, demonstrating our program's impact, efficacy, and effectiveness," says Mukami. "For me, success is about legacy. It is more than having money and actualizing goals. It impacts future generations and creates paths from which others can flourish."
About MLIFE
MLIFE is a US 501(c)3 faith-based charitable organization that supports children experiencing learning poverty to read and write, mentor NextGen leaders to lead and thrive, and elevate families living on the margins to meet their basic needs.
Contact:
Mwangi Mukami (650) 713-3057
Website: https://mlifefoundation.org
SOURCE: MLIFE Foundation
https://www.accesswire.com/753223/MLIFE-Foundation-Breaks-Ground-on-New-Kenya-Headquarters
