Masitchwe Kumbuka arrived in Kenya as a refugee when he was ten years old. He came from Congo, with his younger siblings, after both his parents had been killed by militias.
Now 23, he’s spent most of his life in Kalobeyei Refugee Settlement, a camp with many thousands of other people who have lost everything. But, somehow, Masitchwe decided that what he wanted to do was help others.
When he first contacted Poremma in August 2025, he and three other volunteers were already distributing food to children in the camp whenever donations came in. They had no organisation, no bank account, and no centre. It was just him and a few others, doing what they could with what they had.
We were introduced to Masitchwe through LinkedIn. It was obvious pretty quickly that this was someone worth backing. He’d taught himself IT, was using his own earnings to fund the project, and had a clear sense of what the children in the camp needed. That’s because he’d been one of them.
We started supporting the group in late 2025. Since then, Masitchwe has registered his organisation, opened a bank account, rented a centre, and furnished it so children have somewhere to actually go. The centre now serves 50 children every day with meals, English lessons on laptops, sports, and educational games. The message he sends out is simple: you’re not alone. In a refugee camp, that’s a big thing.
He and his volunteers don’t have steady jobs. What they’ve built didn’t come from privilege or outside pressure. It came from deciding that the children in Kalobeyei deserved better — and then doing something about it. One man shaped by hardship somehow found the strength to build something amazing.
