Join Our Network
Join us to amplify your voice, access new opportunities, and co-create solutions that drive real change from the ground up. Together, we’ll turn local action into lasting impact, building inclusive, climate-resilient, and equitable futures for our communities.
Our Programmatic Pillars
Sauti Stack Program
Leveraging technology to bridge the gap between citizens and governance
Code for Democracy
Code for Democracy is a civic innovation initiative by Nuru Trust Network that empowers young people to strengthen democratic participation through technology, data, and community-led solutions. The project responds to growing youth disengagement, misinformation, and declining trust in democratic institutions by equipping young innovators with the skills to design tools that make democracy more accessible, transparent, and responsive. This project is done in partnership with the Global Democracy Coalition.Code for Human Rights
Code for Human Rights is a civic technology initiative by Nuru Trust Network that brings human rights principles into the heart of security and counter-terrorism conversations. Across Kenya and the Horn of Africa, counter-terrorism measures often unintentionally restrict civic space, digital expression, and community participation. This project responds by translating global human rights standards, particularly UN counter-terrorism frameworks, into practical, locally grounded tools. This project is done in partnership with The UN CSO Coalition on Human Rights and Counterterrorism.
Amani Lab
Strengthening community resilience and cross-border cohesion.
One Stop Youth Centers
Nuru Trust Network, in collaboration with COMESA and the Horn of African Youth Network, have been establishing one-stop youth centres aimed at empowering at-risk youth through holistic support services. These centres, including the pilot hubs in Apala (Uganda) and Baringo (Kenya), provide access to digital skills training, entrepreneurship development, mentorship, and civic engagement opportunities, all designed to reduce youth vulnerability to conflict and extremist recruitment. By integrating education, technology, and social support under one roof, the initiative strengthens youth resilience, fosters economic independence, and promotes active participation in community development across the region.Cross-Border Cohesion
Nuru Trust Network, in partnership with COMESA and the Horn of Africa Youth Network, have been implementing targeted Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (P/CVE) initiatives in Moyale (Kenya/Ethiopia) and Chingola (Zambia/DRC). These programs focus on equipping at-risk youth with critical life skills, digital literacy, and entrepreneurship opportunities, while fostering social cohesion and civic engagement to reduce susceptibility to radicalization. Through community dialogues, mentorship, and youth-led advocacy, the initiatives strengthen local capacities to identify and address early signs of extremism, promoting peaceful, resilient communities across border regions.
Elimu Hub
Equipping the next generation with future-ready skills.
The Vijana Digital Program empowers at-risk youth across Sub-Saharan Africa with essential digital skills, including ICT literacy, coding, and digital entrepreneurship. The program combines practical training, mentorship, and access to technology hubs to enhance employability, foster innovation, and bridge the digital divide. By equipping young people with the tools to participate in the digital economy, the initiative promotes economic independence, resilience against social vulnerabilities, and active engagement in community development.
Mazingira Justice
Promoting sustainable, community-led environmental solutions
Kwale Bamboo Shujaa
The Bamboo Program in Kwale County is a climate justice initiative designed by Nuru Trust Network to address environmental degradation while creating sustainable livelihoods. The program focuses on planting and cultivating bamboo as a renewable resource that can combat soil erosion, restore degraded land, and sequester carbon, contributing to climate mitigation. Alongside environmental restoration, the project integrates youth and community engagement, offering training in bamboo-based enterprises, such as construction materials, crafts, and eco-products, to generate income and build local resilience. By linking climate action with economic empowerment, the initiative aims to foster sustainable development, environmental stewardship, and social equity in the region.
SAUTI YA AFRICA
Regional & continental advocacy influencing high-level policy with grassroots reality.
We sit at the tables where decisions are made from the African Union, COMESA high level engagements to UN Women regional meetings. We ensure that the Common African Position (CAP) reflects the actual needs of youth and women regarding justice, social norms, and regional integration.
HAKI SPACE
This is our civic space & institutional resilience space where we engage with various working groups such as Kenya Non-profit Financial Action Task Force (NPO FATF) where we advocate for the protection of civic space against regulatory overreach. By tracking the impact of counter-terror financing rules and pushing forbanking access for NGOs, we ensure that the ecosystem for development remains open and sustainable.
Ongoing Projects
In the heart of Kenya, a group of young people gather around a laptop. They are part of our Digital Inclusion & Enterprise Innovation journey, where we invite youth from every corner of the country and beyond to imagine a future built by them, for them. We begin by saying: yes, your ideas matter. We equip young women and men with digital skills, from coding to creative tech-entrepreneurship, and offer pathways to enterprise so they don’t just learn, they launch, they build, they create value in their communities.
Here, a young woman turns her design skills into a micro-business. A young man from a rural county builds a local app that helps farmers access market information. Through the Vijana Digital Program, we bridge the gap between aspiration and access, between a dream and a product.
But it doesn’t stop at business. Because we know that for innovation to last, it must meet real community needs, we also foster enterprise innovation, so young people don’t only use tech, they use it to shape their futures in meaningful, sustainable ways.
Then we move to our second journey:
Youth-Led Governance, Peacebuilding & Civic Tech.
In this chapter, youth aren’t just participants, they are co-creators of change. We open dialogue spaces through our Voices of Change platforms, where young voices speak to accountability, transparency and justice. We spark hackathons, like our Code for Democracy program, where civic tech meets governance, and young innovators craft tools to deepen democracy, engage citizens and promote open institutions.
Imagine young people seated at a table with government advisors, because we created the bridge. Imagine young coders and community activists working side-by-side on a mobile tool that helps people report local-level service gaps. Through these efforts rooted in SDG 16, we promote peace, inclusive institutions and participatory governance.
In this strand, technology is not the star, it’s the amplifier for human voices. Young people become trusted partners in building resilient communities, especially across the COMESA region, where we establish One-Stop Youth Centres to support peace-building, resilience and regional collaboration.
Empowering Futures for At-Risk Vijana across COMESA member states: establishing One-Stop Youth Centres to foster peacebuilding and resilience.
Emerging Priorities
As we walk alongside young people, communities, and partners, a new chapter is unfolding, one shaped by the urgent challenges of our time and the bold possibilities ahead of us. Our emerging priorities are not abstract policy themes; they rise directly from what young people tell us in village barazas, innovation hubs, WhatsApp forums, and youth dialogues across the region. Three needs echo again and again: climate justice, green opportunity, and cross-border solidarity.
We are now weaving these into the next phase of our work.
- First, Climate Justice & Green Skills.
Across villages, informal settlements and border towns, young people see the effects of climate change every day: unpredictable rains, shrinking livelihoods, conflicts over scarce resources, and limited pathways to participate in the green economy. They are not asking for sympathy, they are asking for tools, voice, and a fair chance to lead the solutions. Our programs will equip youth with green enterprise skills, climate innovation training, and advocacy platforms so they can influence policy, access opportunity, and drive community restoration efforts. We envision young people who can plant more than trees, they can plant systems of accountability, resilience, and green livelihoods that last. - Second, Resilience, Peace and Cross-Border Collaboration.
Because instability and climate impacts don’t respect borders, we are expanding our peacebuilding efforts across regions. From the COMESA corridors to East Africa’s border communities, we are cultivating youth-led resilience through One-Stop Youth Centres and intergenerational dialogue platforms. Our aim is to transform hotspots into collaboration points, where young people from different nations share knowledge, mediate tensions, co-create solutions, and build a culture of peace and mobility rooted in dignity and cooperation. - Third, Democratic Renewal through Civic Tech.
Governance in Africa is shifting, and young people want to shape what comes next, not from the sidelines, but at the center. Through open-source civic tools, data literacy, accountability innovation and tech-enabled citizen engagement, we see emerging opportunities to renew public trust and make institutions more transparent and accessible. We will continue nurturing the builders, the watchdogs, and the solution-seekers, those who use technology to bridge citizens and duty-bearers, not divide them.
Together, these emerging priorities prepare us for a future where youth are not just reacting to global trends, they are anticipating, influencing, and leading through them. From digital to democratic, from green to peaceful, our journey continues with one constant thread: empowering communities from the ground up, so transformation is not imposed, it is home-grown, shared, and enduring.
Partnership and Collaboration
We welcome collaboration with organizations, foundations, and private sector partners committed to youth empowerment.
To explore partnership opportunities or joint resource mobilization, please get in touch via
ask@nurutrust.africa or through our contact form.