How it all began ...

Initially starting to do voluntary work in their home region of Meru, the two cousins Frank and Denis have been actively involved in different community- and education projects since their youth. In 2010, they founded a non-profit organisation, the predecessor of our organisation. Frank and Denis themselves were lucky to receive quality school education and to be among the first of their village to go to university. When they moved to Nairobi for their studies, they continued their social commitment there. They always have had the dream to leave their little village and become part of something bigger in the world. As they themselves had experienced how education opens doors in life, they wanted to give the same chance to disadvantaged children. Through the work in an international student organisation, Frank and Denis collaborated with educational projects in the slums of Nairobi. Later on, they took over the management of a school in the slum of Mathare. With their own financial means from Frank‘s main occupation as a project manager in an NGO, they stood up for providing education and hence the chance for a better future to underprivileged children. Denis made the decision to quit his job as a criminologist at court and to increase his impact by taking care of the school operation and the children.

OCT 2018

Start of international cooperation

The school regularly offers internships for international students. In this context, Maren and Marie also visited. When Marie was on site for a few weeks in 2018, the idea of working together arose in order to give Frank and Denis' educational work even more room for maneuver through donations from Germany. Marie and Maren then began to acquire donations through a church congregation in Germany.

NOV 2018

New formation of the EFYE CBO, Kenya

Through our cooperation, a new start was possible: We newly founded the non-profit organisation EFYE and the officially recognised school, the EFYE Education Centre in Kenya. 

APR 2019

Moving of the EFYE Education Centre into the new rooms

In April 2019, we moved into new, renovated rooms, equipped them with adequate school furniture, employed qualified teachers as well as a cook, and were now able to provide enough school material to all our children.

JAN 2020

Extension of the EFYE Education Centre

Since January 2020, we have been continuously enrolling more children, so that during the year the number of our pupils inside increased from 50 to about 80 and we hired two additional teachers.

MAY 2020

Foundation of the association
EFYE e.V. in Germany

In order to further develop the educational work and the foundraising activities of EFYE, we founded an official partner organization in Germany in 2020: EFYE e.V.. With these new organizational structures, the foundation was laid to effectively empower as many disadvantaged young people as possible to build a better life for themselves and their environment in the long term, in the spirit of "Two Continents - One Team".