Note from the CEO of Kepler

What an incredible year this has been! This year, thanks to our incredible team, we served our 3000th young person with 1730 served in 2021 alone. Of the young people served this year, 835 were trained as part of the Graduate Employment Program (GEP) in Ethiopia. Our GEP pilot in Rwanda with IPRC Gishari TVET college saw 100% of students trained get a professional internship. We are excited to see the GEP program grow in Ethiopia and Rwanda. We continue to push for gender parity in our GEP programs. Already, 46% of young people trained in Ethiopia are women and we want to do more.
In July, we signed a partnership with Mastercard Foundation to expand our Iteme preparatory program which prepares refugee and vulnerable students, especially young women, to transition from secondary education to tertiary education, employment or self-employment in Rwanda and Ethiopia. This year, we expanded our existing program that transitionsn secondary school students to tertiary education in Rwanda. In 2022, we will expand Iteme to Ethiopia and launch Iteme+ which focuses on transitions to employment and self-employment in Rwanda.
Our support to refugee students continues to grow as we pilot innovations to empower their success at Kepler and their transition to employment or self-employment. This year, we built a women’s room that allows female students at our Kiziba campus to use as a private space for sanitary reasons or to breastfeed. We also launched a special internship fund that refugee graduates could access to be able to relocate from Kiziba refugee camp if they secured an internship or job outside the camp. An additional stipend is offered to women with children to support childcare costs.
In November, as part of our partnership with Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU), we graduated 291 students bringing the total number of bachelor’s degree graduates to 662 with 51% being women. We look forward to growing our partnership with SNHU even as we launch our own degrees with Kepler College in Rwanda next year. We are excited to continue to serve students from our newly renovated Kepler Kigali campus, an over four-hectare property purchased this year.
Beyond our direct interventions, Kepler wants to leverage its experience to support the wider education and skilling ecosystem in Africa. We are proud to be part of The Education Collaborative created by Ashesi University to increase higher education outcomes collectively and sustainably. As a member and co-chair of the East Africa hub, in 2021, we became lead on the Systems Change Program, a mentorship program where universities looking to improve employment outcomes are matched with institutions who have a strong systems and employment track record. We look forward to doing more within the Education Collaborative and more directly by providing technical assistance to partner institutions on career services and employability, competency-based education, and teacher training, among other areas.
As well, this year, we took concrete steps towards financial sustainability, receiving over $450,000 in funding through the Future of Work Fund managed by Chancen International. The Fund provides upfront funding for every Income Shared Agreement (ISA) signed by eligible students. Students start paying once they graduate and are working. We will continue to prioritize overall sustainability and look forward to continuing to offer access to quality education and training to our students, especially women, refugees, and the most vulnerable students.
Next year, we accelerate our already growing pace. We will continue to focus on all our students, making sure they succeed at and after Kepler. That is our bottom line, and we thank all our partners and donors for supporting us in this endeavor.

Nathalie Munyampenda