Where the Church Meets the Streets: YOUNIB's Youth Ministry of Healing, Hope, and Opportunity in Njiru

Serving the poor was never a strategy we selected — the poor are simply our neighbours. In this corner of Kenya’s capital live children who sleep on the streets, teenage mothers raising babies on their own, and schoolgirls whose education is cut short every month by nothing more than the price of a sanitary pad.

This ministry belongs to them: the “little ones of the Kingdom,” the ones the world so easily forgets.

A] Mental Health Services: Nobody Should Carry It Alone

The young people of our communities shoulder burdens far beyond their years — poverty, hardship at home, and pressures that drive some toward drugs and alcohol, and leave others in quiet despair. Far too many students wrestle with anxiety, depression, and loneliness without a single person to confide in.

YOUNIB’s answer is presence without judgment. Three professional psychologists, working hand in hand with trained young volunteers, go out to secondary schools and parishes — giving talks, forming peer support teams, and walking beside students, teachers, and families.

The fruit of this work so far:

From January 2026 uptodate more than 4,530 students across 35 secondary schools have been reached by our counsellors.

309 student leaders in May, 461 in July and 35 teachers have been trained to be the first line of support within their own schools.

Our clinical referral fund has opened the door to specialized professional care for 40 young people in crisis — free of charge for families who could never have paid.

The People We Walk Beside

1. Children of the street. Over a hundred children sleep in the open across the neighbourhoods of our parish. Our outreach starts with a meal, a kind word — and a name, spoken aloud, because every child deserves to be known. From that first encounter we accompany them toward recovery, collect clothes, books, and school fees, and help them find their way back to a classroom. The need has become so pressing that YOUNIB is now discerning the building of a youth rehabilitation centre.

2. Teenage mothers. Girls still in their teens, raising babies alone — often abandoned, sometimes with no home to go back to — arrive at YOUNIB because no other door is open. We give food when we are able, and dignity without exception.

Girls shut out of class by period poverty. In our schools, girls lose up to a week of lessons every single month because sanitary pads are beyond their means. For a girl who loves learning, five lost days a month wounds both her education and her spirit. One dollar a month is all it takes to keep her at her desk.

3. Youth Livelihood: A Trade, a Graduation, a Business of Their Own

Healing is only half the journey — a young person also needs a way to earn a living. Twice a year, YOUNIB opens its vocational training programme to a cohort of 40 needy youths, 80 young people annually, offering hands-on courses in six trades:

a) CCTV installation

b) Beauty therapy

c) Pastry

d) Graphic design

e) Plumbing

f) Hairdressing

Each cycle ends with a graduation ceremony — and with a seed grant, so that every graduate leaves not just with a certificate, but with the means to launch a small business of their own.

B] YOUNIB TV: Carrying the Mission Onto the Airwaves

Our accompaniment of young people doesn’t stop at the counselling room door. YOUNIB TV — a media apostolate run from start to finish by young people — meets youth through what they truly love: music, dance, art, sport, and storytelling.

Each year the station stages talent shows in schools and parishes, open to every young person, whatever their academic standing. Its programmes are conceived and controlled by the youth themselves: they host, they film, they edit — telling stories of the life they know from within: their projects, their faith, their battles, and their dreams.

Through art and media, young people discover healthy ways to release what weighs on them, form real friendships, grow in confidence, and learn that asking for help is a sign of strength. Evangelization is not merely inviting the young to church; it is stepping out to where they are, listening, and uncovering together the gifts God has placed in them. YOUNIB TV is growing into a bridge between the Church and a generation that trusts voices like its own.

Today, twelve young broadcasters serve at YOUNIB TV — choosing creativity and community over the destructive roads that surround them.

This entire mission runs on remarkably little — and every shilling reaches a young person directly:

$130 a month is supposed to sustain one youth: a psychologist, a social worker, or a young broadcaster serving their community.

A gift of any size to the Clinical Referral Fund connects a young person in crisis to specialized professional care.

$40 provides one specialist consultation for a child still waiting.

$1 a month keeps one girl in school with the sanitary pads she needs — and $10 a month keeps ten girls learning every day of the term.

$340 for vocational training

$233 for startup capital

“Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” — 2 Corinthians 9:7

*If you or a young person close to you is going through a hard season, please don’t stay silent — reach our counsellors through YOUNIB St. Monica Parish,or speak to a trusted adult. No one has to walk through it alone.*