Kazi Mghendi
Elimu Fanaka
Bold question: What if schools were centers for creating positive transformation?
Path to Metis: Kazi is passionate about leadership development and uses her experience to identify and support community-led solutions. She is enthusiastic about improving education standards in public primary schools, including supporting education policy reform and implementation thereof in rural communities. Kazi has over 10 years of experience in the humanitarian sector, leadership training, and social development.
As a young girl, she was passionate about books. She spent most of her time reading–this was her sanctuary. When she was 10, both her parents lost their jobs, and they started a new and challenging life. Two years later, Kazi finished primary school, but had to drop out of education because of a lack of finances. Luckily for her, seven years later, she had the opportunity to go back to school. This experience led to her reevaluating her life purpose and career path, eventually landing her in development and education work.
In 2019, Kazi founded Elimu Fanaka, a nonprofit organisation that impacts learners in underserved rural communities, enabling them to access quality education by using schools as centres for creating positive transformation. Elimu Fanaka means “education for prosperity”--Elimu Fanaka believes that education is crucial for any society to prosper. Kazi chose to work in this sector because she understands its importance after seeing its impact on her life. She chose to work with and for rural communities because she understands their challenges.
Kazi previously worked at Acumen Fund, managing their East Africa Fellowship and Academy. She also worked at Ongoza Institute as their Stakeholder Engagement Manager, leading fundraising, marketing, MEL, partnership engagement efforts, and managing relationships with investors, funders, donors, government institutions, partners, and entrepreneurs. Her focus and passion is in international development, fundraising, partnerships/relationship management, project/program management, systems design, and strategic thinking to solve community challenges. She holds a Bachelor's Degree in International Development and a Master’s in International Relations.
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