When I first walked into Kangemi Vocational Centre, I didn’t know what to expect. Kangemi sits right on the edge of Westlands, yet it couldn’t be more different. One side glitters with malls, glass buildings, and fast WiFi. The other side, where we were, struggles with power cuts, poor infrastructure, and a youth population hungry but forgotten.
The room was packed. Young faces from Kangemi, Kawangware, Mountain View. You could feel the energy. You could also feel the fear.
They didn’t show it with words. It was in the way they sat. The quietness. The hesitation to speak up. Years of being overlooked does that to you. You start to believe maybe you’re not cut out for big things. That tech is for people in leafy suburbs, not for you. That digital success is something you scroll past, not something you create.
But I saw through it. I’ve been them.
I started with stories. Real ones. My journey. The many times I was lost. The laptop I first borrowed. The sleepless nights learning how to design a proper website without anyone to teach me. The fear of failure. The first time someone paid me to build something. I told them it’s not about where you’re from, it’s about refusing to settle.
Their eyes lit up.
We dived into digital transformation. What it means. Why it’s not a trend but a shift. I showed them how skills like web design, content creation, branding, and digital marketing are not for the elite, they’re for anyone with access and the will to learn.
We spoke about opportunities. Remote jobs. Selling products online. Building digital resumes. Leveraging WhatsApp and Instagram for business. Simple things they could do even from their phones.
I kept it real. No big words. No fluff. Just raw, practical knowledge they could act on.
One girl stood out, Rachael. Quiet, sharp, eyes full of questions she was too shy to ask aloud. After the session, she walked up to me. Said she wanted to start a fashion business but didn’t know where to begin. I listened. Then I broke down branding for her. I showed her how to think like a brand, not just a seller.
I told her to go to academy.digitalmoran.africa a platform with many free courses. I built it for people like her. For the Rachaels who want to rise but don’t know how. She smiled not because the answers were easy, but because someone finally told her she could.
That’s what we do at Digital Moran. We don’t throw big words at young people and hope it sticks. We sit with them. Teach them. Show them. We create safe spaces where fear turns into fire.
And Kangemi lit up that day.
We’ve trained youth in villages, in estates, in forgotten towns and it’s the same story. There’s a deep divide between youth who are exposed and those who are not. But the hunger is the same. The dreams are the same. What’s missing is access. What’s missing is someone to say yes, you belong in tech too.
Digital transformation shouldn’t leave the ghetto behind. It shouldn’t be something only the rich understand. It should be the great equalizer.
That’s why we’re building Digital Moran into a movement. A mission to equip every young person from Maasailand to Mathare, Kangemi to Kajiado with the skills to survive and thrive in the digital economy. Not just learn, but earn. Not just earn, but build.
If we had more devices, more trainers, more sessions like the one in Kangemi, we’d change thousands of lives.
The spark is already there. You should see it in their eyes.
We just need to keep lighting the fire.
Join us. Let’s build something that lasts.
Let’s empower the forgotten youth.
Let’s show them what happens when digital skills meet raw ambition.
This is just the beginning.
