Heroes for Change

There is high youth unemployment in Kenya, meaning young people often struggle to build up the skills and experience needed to join the workforce. Alongside this, there is an urgent need for motivated youth to deliver social impact programmes in underserved communities.

Heroes for Change (H4C) is a for-profit, service-based organisation that harnesses the power of university students to utilise technology to deliver social impact programmes in their own communities. Unemployed young people have the time, social capital and trust to reach the communities that will benefit the most from H4C’s social impact programmes; they represent an untapped force for good and are ideally placed to drive the behaviour change needed in underserved communities.

TRANSFORM worked with H4C to test the viability and sustainability of the idea that youth volunteers could deliver social impact programmes via technology. The initiative then helped H4C to develop a tech platform to support the end-to-end journey of ‘heroes’ (youth volunteers) from the website, social feed, Heroes4Change Connect and mobile WhatsApp bot.

Throughout the project, H4C commissioned and delivered a range of existing and new social impact programmes on handwashing and oral hygiene, recycling plastic waste and rapid response to contain the spread of COVID-19 in Nairobi, Mombasa, Kakamega, Kisii and Meru.

With TRANSFORM’s support, H4C equipped young people with entry level skills and experience to help them to find employment. The initiative also supported H4C to develop a scalable business model for the enterprise. H4C also partnered with Unilever brand Lifebuoy to teach school children the importance of proper handwashing.