He Had Twenty Cents and Used It to Start a Movement

Kennedy Odede worked ten-hour shifts in a factory in Kenya, earning about a dollar a day. Somehow, he managed to save twenty cents from that tiny wage. He used the money to buy a soccer ball.

He took it back to Kibera, the neighborhood in Nairobi where he had grown up. Other young people came to play, and when the games ended, they stayed to talk. Those conversations would eventually grow into an organization that helped millions of people.

He Knew What It Was Like to Go Hungry

Odede’s family had moved to Kibera after famine forced them to leave rural Kenya. By the time he was ten, he was living on the streets, searching for food and sleeping wherever he could. He learned early what it was like to have almost nothing.

One day, he took a mango from a market because he was hungry. An angry crowd attacked him, and a stranger stepped in to save him. Odede never forgot that someone had been willing to help a child in trouble.

He also grew up watching his mother work through enormous difficulties while women and girls around him faced far fewer opportunities than men. Her strength stayed with him, and he began to believe that giving girls a better education could help change the future of an entire community.

A Soccer Ball Brought People Together

As a young man, Odede saw how poverty, violence and the struggle to survive could divide people in Kibera. Soccer gave them something they could enjoy together, regardless of what was happening in their daily lives.

The games soon became regular gatherings. Young people would play, then stick around to discuss problems they were facing. They talked about unemployment, violence, the shortage of clean water and the limited opportunities available to girls.

Before long, the conversations became more organized. Instead of waiting for outside organizations to arrive with solutions, the young people began discussing what they could do for their own neighborhood. They understood the problems because they were living with them every day.

In 2004, Odede formally founded Shining Hope for Communities, better known as SHOFCO. It began as a grassroots movement led by local residents who wanted to make Kibera a better place to live.

A New Partner and a School for Girls

In 2007, an American student named Jessica Posner traveled to Kenya as part of a study-abroad program. She met Odede, moved into Kibera and became involved in the community work he had started. The two eventually married and continued building the organization together.

They shared a strong interest in education, particularly for girls who had grown up with limited opportunities. Odede had seen those inequalities throughout his childhood, and now they had a chance to do something about them.

In 2009, they opened the Kibera School for Girls with an initial class of 40 students. It was an important step for SHOFCO, giving girls access to an education designed around their needs and opening doors that had previously been difficult to reach.

The organization continued expanding its services. It opened health clinics, developed clean-water systems and created programs for women and young people. It also worked with local groups to help residents organize and take a greater role in decisions affecting their neighborhoods.

As SHOFCO grew, its programs became more closely connected. Families could receive health care, children could attend school, and local residents could work together to address problems that had troubled their communities for years.

From Kibera to Communities Across Kenya

What started in one Nairobi neighborhood gradually spread to other parts of Kenya. SHOFCO began working with more communities, supporting local leaders and expanding access to education, health care, clean water and other essential services.

According to SHOFCO, the organization now reaches more than 2.4 million people each year across 68 sites. Its network has grown into one of Kenya’s largest community-led movements, with residents helping shape the programs operating where they live.

Odede’s own life was changing, too. After spending much of his childhood struggling to survive, he eventually attended Wesleyan University in the United States, where he earned a degree in sociology.

He continued working with Jessica as SHOFCO expanded, bringing together the experience he had gained growing up in Kibera and the education he had received abroad.

The World Began to Notice

In 2018, the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation awarded SHOFCO its $2 million Hilton Humanitarian Prize, one of the world’s largest humanitarian awards. The foundation recognized the organization’s work in education, health care, clean water and economic opportunity, along with its focus on community leadership.

Odede also received international recognition of his own. He became an Obama Foundation Africa Leader and a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. In 2024, TIME named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Odede and Jessica also wrote a book together, telling the story of their childhoods, how they met and the work they built in Kibera.

They called it Find Me Unafraid.