Expanding educational access for Kisumu's most vulnerable kids

2022:
- Recognizing the loss of all fund raising for Life Center School due to the death of Pastor James Samo's father, K.E.E.F. stepped in to provide 100% funding for the school's immediate and most critical needs beginning in October 2022, including paying teacher salaries and food for the students.
2023:
- Continued to provide 100% funding of the school's expenses.
- Assisted in negotiating a new one-year lease with the property owner. K.E.E.F. also began paying the monthly rent for the school.
- Provided funding for new equipment for the chemistry lab.
2024:
- Increase monthly funding of school operations to help build a more functional academic environment for the students.
- The owner of the land on which the school operates announcing its plans to sell the land, K.E.E.F. executed an agreement to purchase the land on which Kisumu’s Life Centre School (LCS) operates. Without the purchase, the land would have been sold to developers and the school would have closed.
2025:
- Provided additional funding to LCS to reduce food insecurity issues for students.
- K.E.E.F. is now working with Life Centre School to develop a long-term plan to upgrade the school's facilities and educational resources.

Connecting Continents

Jalmer has dedicated his 40+ year career to working with and for labor unions worldwide to defend, protect and enhance employee wages, benefits, working conditions and job security.
Nancy has spent over two decades teaching and tutoring immigrants to the U.S. in English as a Second Language (ESL) programs.
Jalmer and Nancy have been supporting Life Centre School through K.E.E.F. since 2022.
At K.E.E.F., Jalmer is responsible for fundraising, financing, due diligence, distribution of funds, regulatory compliance and long term organizational development.
Nancy is responsible for supporting education development programs at LCS.
Nancy and Jalmer are both members of the K.E.E.F. Board of Directors.

James grew up in a mud hut in east Kisumu and saw from a young age the debilitating impacts of poverty and lack of educational access on Kisumu's poorest communities
Along with his wife and partner, Alice (Life Centre's head administrator), James has spent much of his adult life serving his community in a variety of ways
He and Alice began their community education efforts in 2016, with only seven students, and now educate over 300 students, year-round, at their creation: Life Centre School

Jalmer has worked in the service/development world for over a decade, including with multiple AmeriCorps conservation and poverty non-profits, as an agricultural extension volunteer with the US Peace Corps in Madagascar, and further service in east Africa spending six-months in 2019 at a rural Kenyan school funded by a small US-based NGO
Jalmer received an M.A. in International Policy & Analysis from American University's School of International Service in 2023; the development of K.E.E.F. served as his capstone project
Jalmer has served as Executive Director of K.E.E.F. and is currently on the Board of Directors.