Kennedy Odede is a Kenyan social entrepreneur and author of a New York Times best-selling memoir. Odede is the co-founder and CEO of Shining Hope for Communities (SHOFCO), a movement based in Nairobi , Kenya and New York, USA.
Odede was awarded the 2010 Echoing Green Fellowship and was named to Forbes under 30 list for top social entrepreneurs in 2014. He is also a member of the Clinton Global Initiative. His work had been featured by President Bill Clinton, Madonna, Beyonce, and by Nicholas Kristof in The New York Times and his book A Path Appears. Odede’s own writing has appeared on the op-ed pages of The New York Times, CNN, Project Syndicate and The Guardian.
Odede is a Young Global Leader (YGL) at the World Economic Forum and an Obama Foundation Africa Leader. He is the co-author of the New York Times best-selling book Find Me Unafraid: Love, Loss, and Hope in an African Slum, which he wrote with his wife and business partner, Jessica Posner.
Early life
Odede was born in a small village in Kenya, where he lived until the village was struck by famine when he was two years old. His mother moved the family to the capital city, Nairobi, to seek better living conditions. Encountering a lack of jobs and housing in Nairobi, they ended up in Kibera. Odede lived in the Kibera Slum for 23 years in poor conditions. Being the oldest of eight children, Odede became a street child at the age of ten. Influenced by the non-violence principles of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Odede imagined how he could change his community. In 2004, he worked in a factory, earning $1 for ten hours of work. He saved enough money to start SHOFCO. Later on, Shining Hope became the largest grassroots organization in Kibera. Although he was informally educated, Odede received a full scholarship to Wesleyan University in America. Odede graduated in 2012 as the Commencement Speaker with honors in sociology before returning full-time to SHOFCO.
Career
In 2010, Odede was awarded the Echoing Green Fellowship, which is given to the world’s best emerging social entrepreneurs. He was named to the Forbes "30 under 30 list" for top social entrepreneurs and is a member of the Clinton Global Initiative. His work has been featured by President Bill Clinton and Nicholas Kristof in The New York Times. Odede served on the United Nations International Commission for Financing of Global Education Opportunities and on the Board of Directors of Wesleyan University. He is a senior fellow with Humanity in Action and an Aspen Institute New Voices Fellow. He was named a Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur of the Year in 2022. He is a Young Global Leader (YGL) of the World Economic Forum. In 2022, he was appointed by Administrator Samantha Power to the USAID Advisory Committee.
Personal
Odede is the co-author of a New York Times autobiography, Find Me Unafraid: Love, Loss, and Hope in an African Slum, that is about him and his wife, Jessica Posner, and their collaboration. In August 2018, they had newborn twins: Oscar Garvey and Maridad Esther. In January 2020, their third child, Zayn Nelson, was born.
References
Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Kenyan emigrants to the United States Social entrepreneurs Wesleyan University alumni