Breaking the Cycle of Poverty: How YOUng Steps Kenya Is Making a Difference

Education is a fundamental right that should be accessible to all children, without exception. It should be a pleasant and engaging experience for every child. However, in underserved communities, accessing school and quality resources remains a significant challenge. This perpetuates a vicious cycle in which the lack of education hinders one’s chances of escaping poverty later in life.

Although primary education in Kenya is mandatory and officially free, parents are still responsible for additional costs related to education.

Motivated teachers and well-equipped schools can transform the learning process into an extraordinary journey, but limited funding frequently makes this goal difficult to achieve.

In this context, YOUng Steps Kenya has emerged as an organization committed to tackling these complex issues head-on. By focusing on both immediate needs and long-term development, they offer children a renewed sense of hope and opportunity.

We had a lovely conversation with Timeea Marin, the founder of YOUng Steps Kenya, and one of those people who chose to make a difference. With an academic background in Cultural Anthropology, Social Politics, and Gender Studies from the Georg-August University in Göttingen, combined with experience in volunteering and educational policies at a European level, Timeea dedicates her time and energy to supporting access to education and social inclusion. Her belief is simple yet powerful: children and adolescents need to believe in themselves and their dreams to succeed later in life.

Why education and why Kenya? How did it all begin? What inspired you to start this project, and what convinced you that your intervention was necessary? Do you have a story that deeply moved you?

The short answer is ‘because my gut feeling said so 😊’.

When I first touched Kenyan ground, I felt that that is the place I belong to. It is the kind of connection that needs to be experienced to be understood. Kenya is not the most beautiful nor the poorest country I have ever visited – however, it has turned out to be a place where I could easily and naturally connect with people, places and the experiences it has to offer. So, it was rather a personal preference than a rational choice. After almost 2 years I can say that my initial feeling turned out to be right. I have behind me years of volunteering in marginalized communities in Romania, yet the reality of Kenya is so different and the impact of our actions there is incomparably meaningful.

Education is regarded in almost all African country as the single means to end poverty and is therefore valued differently than we are used to in Europe. However, the access to continuous and quality education is not a given, since there is no social system in place that can guarantee this right to all children. Imagine you wanted to learn and could not, because you didn’t have a uniform, and therefore were not allowed to attend school. Imagine you wanted to read a book and could not, because your family lacks the funds for providing this. Imagine you wanted to go to school and could not, because you are having your menstruation and are lacking sanitary pads and feared spotting…You cannot deny children a universal right, the right to education. And it is our duty to contribute to making this happen for all children. I am leaving here a quote of Fred Rogers that sums it all up: “We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It’s easy to say ‘It’s not my child, it’s not my community, not my world, not my problem.’ Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes.”.

I have many stories that moved me and changed the way I connect the world and respond to situations around me. However, I remember that the most striking image for me was when I first visited the Madago Primary School and learned that in grade 1 there were 97 learners sitting on the ground and listening to their teacher. In a room with broken floor. With no desks. In uniforms. Most of them not having had breakfast at home. And yet, they were there, paying attention. The list goes on: children fearing warm water running from the shower (because they hadn’t seen a shower before), teenagers not knowing how to tie shoelaces (because they hadn’t had shoes with laces before), stories of siblings who had died of malaria, even though the treatment costs 5 dollars. I could go on for pages…

What are the biggest challenges for those communities and what challenges do you encounter when implementing your projects?

Poverty is the biggest challenge – and all that comes with it.

Kenya is a country where there is absolutely no social system – you must pay for any services you need – medical, educational etc. Combined with an economy based on small jobs, no continuous employment, and hence uncertain sources of income, it creates and environment where the rich are getting richer, and the poor have few chances of escaping their circle. For example, in a family with three children, it is highly improbable that parents will have money to send all three children continuously to school. They will have to choose whom to send, and it is often boys who win this competition (as traditionally they will be the breadwinners in the family and are also the ones responsible for taking care of their ageing parents), leaving girls behind to take care of the household chores. Studies have shown that in African countries, men will invest 30% of their income in their families, while women will invest 90% in their family – so having educated and skilled women in labor would dramatically improve family situations, and hence educational levels of future generations, making escaping the poverty circle easier. However, many of them miss this opportunity from the start…And I have made it one of the priorities of my NGO to offer extra support to girls to stay in school and be good in school, through the ‘Learn Like a Girl’ initiative.

We have not had a major blocker in implementing projects yet. In all our projects we have involved locals for two reasons: the first one is making them co-responsible of the success of our projects, and the second one is their local know-how which we consult to understand better the priorities and local realities. We cannot go in such a place and say what needs to be done and how it needs to be done. Instead, we should realize that NGOs overseas are successful because of collaboration, openness, willingness to understand and to unlearn the way we see things, and be open to new perspectives.

However, not everything runs 100% smoothly – there were small cases of tribalism, diverging opinions and interests among stakeholders, very small thefts, and misunderstandings. We have solved them every time and learned valuable lessons of ‘how to’ and ‘how not to’ in future projects.

Your organization is still in its early stages, yet you have already accomplished so much. Could you share what these past two years have been like? What have been the key milestones and achievements along the way?

Considering that I have a full-time job and that the NGO is my passion and dream, and not my daily activity, I think that we have accomplished so much since December 2023. Here is a list of the most important accomplishments:

• We have equipped the school with a multifunctional printer and laptops

• We have equipped all 520 children with notebooks and pencils at the beginning of the school year in 2024

• We have equipped classrooms with desks, so children do not sit on the ground during class anymore

• We have renovated the water source and made is safe to use

• We have renovated the girls’ toilets, tiled them and ensured water in the bathroom

• We are sponsoring 12 children, each with their own sponsor, to ensure that they stay in school, learn well and have everything they need for a smooth development

• We have organized workshops on menstruation, sexual health, STDs, consent – one of my personal favorites 😊 – and we keep running them regularly

• We have organized painting workshops and game days for children

• We have organized one team building activity for teachers, enhancing their motivation

• We have equipped the football teams of the school with uniforms, giving them an identity and a boost of motivation

• And our biggest project, which we have finalized at the end of February 2025 is the renovation of the administrative building of the school, ensuring a good structure, roofing, electricity, water, new doors and windows, desks for the teachers, tiles and – most importantly – a medical room, where volunteer doctors can come and offer their basic medical services to the learners and their families.

What role do parents and teachers play in your initiatives? How does the community support you?

Teachers and the members of the Board of Management of the school are the ones who make sure that things get implemented when I am not there (which is most of the time). They always report to me on how the different projects are going, how funds are spent, which are the difficulties, and which should be useful next steps. I rely a lot on the local knowledge and judgement, and trust that this is the only way that guarantees that things will work.

The community support is rather punctual and when asked for – for example, while renovating the building, the funds for paying workers were exhausted before finishing, so community members came and helped with painting, ensuring that we get the work done respecting our deadline.

What are your main sources of funding, and how do you manage resources to achieve your goals?

This is the biggest challenge 😊. In Romania we, as a society, do not have the culture of giving to charity causes. We are even more distrusting when it comes to actions in other countries. Whenever I talk to people about my NGO, the most common reaction is “Don’t we have poor people in Romania as well?”. It is a legitimate reaction; however, I think that all too often we are missing the bigger picture. Remember the ‘90s when we used to get support and donations from people in Western Europe? Imagine if they had thought like most of us in Romania think today…

Most of the funding comes from private persons in Romania and some very few donors from Germany, Switzerland and France. Most of them are personal contacts who believe in me and my cause and have trust that I do good with their money. Their support is invaluable.

It is a struggle to find new sources of funding every time, and this is why we prioritize with much care our projects. From the little funds that we have, we must make sure that we invest them exactly there where it is needed.

We are organizing fundraising events from time to time, but these are always a lottery. It turned out that sometimes the investment was bigger than the outcome. But this was not always the case. I am lucky enough to have found people who have supported me and helped me gather funds from concerts, fares etc., so that through the NGO I keep making a difference in the life of those who need it most.

How can people who are inspired by your work get involved and support you in creating an even greater impact?

There are two ways:

• support the NGO’s projects financially, through one-time or regular donations - https://youngsteps-kenya.org/get-involved/

• get involved as volunteers – there is enough to do for everybody and I am sure we can find tasks for any type of skills 😊 – contact me for more details at contact@youngsteps-kenya.org

What are your biggest dreams for YOUng Steps Kenya?

Bringing Madago Primary School at a decent level with regards to buildings and equipment, having a 0% school drop-out rate for the girls in the school, contributing to growing the know-how on sexual and hygiene topics, raising the quality of the teaching in school.

And when all this is done, there is a school with great people in Taita (also Kenya) waiting for YOUng Steps Kenya to work wonders for them also 😊.

YOUng Steps Kenya shows that change often begins with small steps. With every completed project, every child who stays in school, and every community that receives support, the organization proves that education can truly be a powerful tool for transformation.