So, What Is EACEF?

Founded in September 2007 by a group of high school students who shared a belief in the power of education, EACEF (East African Children’s Education Fund) utilizes a holistic, community-based approach to address educational inequity in East Africa while engaging the next generation of leaders to take up social causes. Linking young people across continents, EACEF is both youth-focused and youth-driven and operates as a 501(c)3 registered public charity. With project locations across Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda, EACEF has successfully invested over a quarter million dollars in educational infrastructure and programming. In the United States, EACEF provides a replicable model for aspiring youth to get involved with social action through its GenerAction Initiative. Partnering with distinguished organizations and corporations in all fields, EACEF seeks to make opportunity through education a reality in East Africa.

How EACEF and GenerAction fit together…

In a heated discussion in Kenya during the summer of 2009, members of the EACEF team sat down to talk about the organization's future goals. On the table were such questions as: In light of our primary mission - creating educational opportunity for children of East Africa - what is the most efficient plan of action? As our programs expand to reach out to other schools, should we phase out student leadership in exchange for more professional management? After a few rounds of discussion, however, individual staffers began to express a deep sense of engagement not just with the communities they had come to know, but also with the dynamic experience of creating and running a grassroots organization. By downplaying the student-run aspect, EACEF would lose one of its most unique motivational tools - its by students, for students motto - as well as a key source of educational growth for everyone involved.

After deciding to maintain EACEF as a youth-driven organization, the staff began to re-evaluate the organization's mission, core values, and program development and support. From the ensuing conversations, GenerAction was born. GenerAction now uses the EACEF model to teach young people about social entrepreneurship and action through the context of East African educational inequality and, by extension, a broader spectrum of global social ills. Once students have run EACEF chapters under GenerAction, they are forever empowered to take on a social mission of their choosing.