Transforming a Kenyan Community Through Faith and Holistic Impact

April 29, 2025 | Ashley Hendrickson

One of our newest communities in Kenya is a great practical example of how One Collective’s model of Integrated Community Transformation (ICT) takes shape in everyday work. There are four steps to the ICT process: Enter, Evaluate, Engage, and Expand, and one person at the center of them all: Jesus. Continue reading to see how ICT has impacted one Kenyan community over the past few years.

Enter

When Emily and her family moved to Kenya so that her husband could pursue a new job opportunity, she didn’t know what God had in store for her. But, she knew that her career in physical therapy could be a door opener in the community, so she began volunteering at a local rehabilitation center for children, youth, and young adults with disabilities. At Matumaini Rehabilitation Center, Emily built relationships and learned more deeply about life and needs in the community. Around the same time, she was introduced to One Collective and resonated with our strategy for holistic community transformation. She decided to join the organization and took on the role of a catalyst, a One Collective leader who acts like a general contractor, working with local leaders to find solutions that bring together the needs and strengths of a specific community.

Evaluate

As a catalyst, Emily began conversations with a local leader to develop a community forum of other locals who wanted to be positive change-makers in their community. Together, these leaders identified five key areas of transformation:

Youth, especially unemployed males and those involved in crime or substance abuse;
Oppressed women, particularly single mothers and widows;
The homebound, including the elderly and those with disabilities;
People affected by gender based violence; and
People affected by domestic violence.

While it was incredibly exciting to have a budding group of vision-filled community leaders, knowing where to go next was complicated and daunting. One Collective desires not just to address symptomatic issues, but rather the roots of brokenness in each community. Emily and local leaders needed to consider the five identified areas of transformation and discern what they could do to address the root causes of these forms of oppression in their community. What would touch each area and produce the good fruit they were looking for?

Engage

Through prayer, the answer became clear. Emily shared, “One of the key factors that kept coming out was that there was a fundamental lack of self-worth and lack of hope… That got me thinking much more intentionally about discipleship, because potentially I can create jobs or other kinds of initiatives where we would see a quick physical outcome, but actually, the people need transformation from Jesus from within.” Since then, Emily and community members have been developing all of their initiatives to prioritize discipleship elements of walking with Jesus, praying together, and applying God’s word to what they are doing.

Today, there are a number of developing ministries in Kenya. One of these was enabled by One Collective’s Visible Fund, which provided an initial input of capital that allowed the community to kickstart a farming project growing maize. The maize was first used to provide meals for youth staying at the rehabilitation center and then also sold to generate more capital for a sewing ministry. This sewing ministry creates opportunities for single mothers and widows to get training in sewing and be intentionally discipled. The expectation of each woman in the program is that they will share what they learn with others, empowering them to be not just beneficiaries but active change-makers in their community. Eventually, the program will also provide opportunities for employment, creating goods that fill other needs in the community.

Expand

One Collective loves to bring people together to help the oppressed. If you’d like to be involved in caring for people with disabilities, building community among the elderly population, teaching business and entrepreneurship, or building up women and teenage girls to know their worth in Christ, you should reach out to one of our serving coaches. We’d love to talk about what serving in Kenya could look like for you and your community.