To create sustainable communities and employment opportunities by providing comprehensive waste management solutions, promoting environmental education, conserving natural resources, empowering local communities, and advocating for policies that protect our planet for future generations.

OUR MISSION

Our
Founder

Biography: Lydiah Njoki Katiba

Lydiah Njoki Katiba is the youngest of four children. Raised by a single mother, she grew up in the tea fields of Tigoni, Kenya.

According to Lydiah, life in the tea fields was the best life imaginable. She says that she couldn’t have chosen a better place to grow up. Although she lacked electricity and other basic needs, she had friends, family, nature, creativity, and community. “It never, ever felt like we lacked or were disadvantaged,” Lydiah explains. “We had the best life ever lived. Under the moon, we played many fun games and got into trouble for staying out too late. One time, we tried rolling down a hill on the tea, but I got so many injuries that I never tried that again. We used to crawl under the tea, creating make-believe homes and roads. We made an entire city under the tea, hidden from the adults. Oh! How I miss the tea fields!”

At the Mabroukie Tea Factory, Lydiah’s mom earned 3,000 Kenyan Shillings per month, which diminished quickly with four children. Despite the small income, Lydiah and her siblings never went hungry nor were they sent home due to missing school fees. They benefited from a program that allowed them to purchase food, such as maize, beans, sugar, and cooking oil, on credit. The bill would then be deducted from their mother’s next paycheck. Similarly, the tea factory paid the children’s school fees, and her mother repaid the costs through a program called check-off, making small deductions from her paycheck little by little.

After high school, Lydiah knew she would not go on to college due to her family’s financial situation. She was determined to find a job and help increase her family’s income. Her first job was washing dishes in the Brackenhurst Conference Center’s kitchen. “It was called the wash-up club,” Lydiah describes. “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Brackenhurst was incredibly busy, with 300-400 guests per day. I would cry washing those dishes. Seriously, I would cry. I would say intense prayers; the situation at home was my motivation. They would bring breakfast dishes, then the mid-break dishes, then the lunch dishes. I was standing the whole time. But I did it diligently, with tears. The first time I got paid, I was so happy. I didn’t take anything from the check, but gave it all to my mom.”

Lydiah’s life has been filled with many people who believed in her and invested in her future. One influential person was Kim Pace, the founder of an organization called BlueSky. Kim initially hired Lydiah to help clean the organization’s facilities. After some time, Kim asked Lydiah what she was deeply passionate about. Lydiah’s reply was: community development. From there, Kim paid for her college education, taking small installments from Lydiah’s paycheck, and eventually waived her loans entirely. Upon graduation, Lydiah concluded her contract with BlueSky and went on to pursue her dream of developing her community.

Uhuru Child Relief

After Kenya’s post-election violence in 2007-2008, Lydiah co-founded a nongovernmental organization that provided relief for an Internally Displaced Peoples camp called Jikaze (meaning “to persevere”). Lydiah and her team organized food relief, built homes, and eventually drilled a borehole to provide access to drinking water for over 1,000 people. The borehole became a business for the community.

Uhuru Farms

After assessing the skills of the youth and adults in Jikaze, Lydiah and her colleague Joe Heritage bought land and started a farm to employ agriculturalists from the displacement camp. They farmed and sold vegetables, chickens, pigs, and dairy cows.

Uhuru Academy

Lydiah and her team began to notice that teenage girls from the camp were particularly vulnerable because the camp was located along the highway at a prominent truck stop. Despite offering scholarships for the girls to attend local high schools, many became pregnant and dropped out of school. In response, Lydiah and her team founded Uhuru Girls Academy, a boarding school in Tigoni, Kenya. Uhuru currently has 120 girls enrolled and employs approximately 30 adults on salary.

“Throughout my life,” Lydiah concludes, “I’ve had a lot of people who came and supported me to be who and where I am. It makes me believe that I should be that to other people. I’m in a position to create opportunities for youth, in the form of employment, education, or anything else.”

Challenges She Faced

Although Lydiah was given opportunities that led her to higher education and employment, she is surrounded by peers—thousands of youth—who are unemployed and unskilled. They want to pay rent, but they can’t. They want to work hard in their jobs, but very few jobs are available. They want to further their education, but they don’t have the financial means. As a result of this loss of purpose, many of Lydiah’s unemployed peers engage in idleness, crime, and drugs. Some youth resort to seeking employment in the Middle East and end up being mistreated. The opportunities for employment in Kenya simply do not meet the needs of the 800,000 Kenyan youth who enter the workforce every year.

Lydiah's love and passion for nature provided an opportunity for her to research and explore the possibility of conserving and restoring nature while providing much-needed employment through readily available resources. This was the birth of Friends of Creation.

OUR VISION

Increase waste collection points to 100.
Achieve approximately 20% value addition, e.g., converting aluminum to day-to-day products, plastic to pellets, and glass to post-construction sand.
Increase recyclables up to 80%.
Acquire four more trucks to facilitate additional collection.
Process organic fertilizers from organic waste.
Increase daily waste collection to 10 tons.

WASTE MANAGEMENT

Raise community awareness through empowerment programs.
Organize clean-up exercises.
Form partnerships with businesses for tree planting and conservation of existing trees.
Protect and restore four wetlands.
Eliminate landfills.
Prevent air pollution caused by waste burning.
Transform five yards (primarily in public schools, institutions, and businesses) into pollinator-friendly gardens.

ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION

Provide stable employment to 200 families.
Educate the neighboring community on the value of waste and how they can profit from it.
Consult with businesses on cost-effective, environmentally friendly methods for product preservation to reduce unnecessary waste.

SOCIO-ECONOMIC IMPACT

Establish "Eco Warrior Clubs" in schools to educate children about the environment.
Launch awareness campaigns.
Publish bi-monthly newsletters featuring new findings and tips to keep the environment clean.

ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION

About Us

“If the why is powerful, the how is easy”...

Creating sustainable communities and taking care of the world we live in has always been our top priority at Friends Of Creation. This starts right at home for us, in Kenya, East Africa.

Africa’s youth unemployment rate has been steadily worsening and is now reaching crisis proportions. 60% of the unemployed are youth. When the youth do get jobs, they are working long hours in unsafe settings with little earnings. Females are particularly disadvantaged when entering the labor force, due to early motherhood and lack of education, according to the World Bank.

Africa is the fastest-growing continent by population, and it has been since the year 1967. Its demographic profile is shaped like a pyramid, with a youth bulge at the base. Almost half of Africa’s population is under 25; about 75% is under the age of 35.

With this growing population, education is required to prepare youth to be job-ready. There is a correlation between education (particularly post-secondary education) and employment. In Kenya, out of every 100 students who start primary school, only 68 transition to secondary school; and just 6 of this group go to universities or tertiary institutions. Every year, more than 800,000 youth enter the job market annually, and almost 40% do not find a means for employment.