Our Mission

We strive to build a world where rural Kenyan youth possess the knowledge, power and tools necessary to lead healthy, safe and productive lives. COCE embraces a change strategy utilizing community-driven strength based approaches to leverage local and external resources needed to meet the complex needs of vulnerable youth living in rural Western Kenya. COCE seeks to create lasting effects by empowering the most vulnerable members of the community to become agents of social change.

Collective

It is the organization’s belief that it is only through the collaboration with local people that lasting and meaningful change can be accomplished in Busia County. Through the collective efforts of our students, donors, community members, and staff we can partner together to create solutions for the problems facing rural Kenyan schoolchildren.

Orphan care

It is estimated that there are over 3 million orphans in Kenya and nearly half of those are orphaned due to the devastation caused by the AIDs & HIV epidemic. Orphans are especially vulnerable to abuse, neglect, poverty, negative health outcomes, and lack of educational access. In Kenya many orphans end up living with either extended family or grandparents who have other children to care for. As an agency we seek to advocate for orphans and alleviate additional burdens experienced by their caregivers.

education

In Kenya education is one of the few avenues available for people to lift themselves and their families out of poverty. It is COCE’s mission to create rippling change, because when one student is sent to school that one student equates to transformative change for their family, and by extension their community. Education is the cornerstone of COCE’s mission, heart, and impact.