“There's no skill that I feel was not taught here”

Catherine Mwangi grew up in Kinangop, Nyandarua County, and came to Nairobi straight from high school in 2012 without an ID or a place to stay. She took a job as a house helper for 3,500 shillings a month—about $27—and sent her first full salary to her mother. The woman she worked for was a banker, who paid for Catherine's computer studies and encouraged her. In 2015, her employer’s husband connected her to Digital Divide Data. She passed the interview and started working on a data entry project, working night shifts transcribing old handwriting while still helping with housework for the banker.

When the data-entry project ended, Catherine turned to washing clothes for neighbors and hawking bags online, the networking skills she learned from DDD helping her reach out to potential customers. In January 2017, DDD called her back for two weeks to fill in for some workers who were taking exams. She gave everything, determined to make an impression: "You will either hire me or hire me." She graduated from Kenyatta University with a bachelor's degree and now teaches digital literacy and employability skills to young adults from marginalized areas. She sees herself in them, and considers it her greatest success when they graduate ready for anything. Looking back at her house-help days, she remembers praying for the professional life her banker employer lived. "DDD gave me a foundation that I didn't know existed," she says. "When I joined the organization, I saw a different life, a life that I never imagined could be there."