Help Us Grow the Luke Library at Nyamboyo Technical School
Nyamboyo Technical School (NTS) is a vocational school in Nyamboyo Village, Kenya, with a simple but powerful mission: to lift teens out of extreme poverty by transforming them into skilled, economically independent professionals. In a community of 58,000 people where over 65% live below the international poverty line, the barriers facing our students are real and urgent. For many, education ends after primary school simply because survival gets in the way.
NTS breaks that cycle. Students spend three years mastering one of four trades — electrical wiring, hairdressing, masonry/carpentry, or tailoring — all growing economic sectors in our region. Alongside their trade training, they receive essential academics, employment skills, and physical and mental health support. They also receive three meals a day. For many of our students, that is the first time in their lives they have eaten three times daily.
The Library a Teen Built
Our library has a name: the Luke Library. It is named after Luke Kugler, a remarkable American teenager who connected with NTS students as a pen pal and, through those letters, saw something that moved him to act — our students had almost nothing to read. In Kenya's underfunded public schools, it is common for ten students to share a single textbook. Outside of school, many of our teens have never held a book that was theirs to explore.
Luke didn't just feel for them. He raised the funds to purchase our first 250 books.
That act of generosity from one young person to another is now growing into something larger. Teens from Innovate Education in Seattle have taken up the cause, committed to raising funds for an additional 250 to 300 books. Innovate Education is a youth run organization that aims to spread STEM Education to underprivileged students in the community. Impacting over 230 students worldwide, they strive to break the barrier of educational inequality one math problem at a time.
What makes this so powerful is not just the books themselves — it is the message behind them. Young people on one side of the world, choosing to invest in young people on the other. That kind of teen-to-teen mentorship changes how our students see themselves and what they believe is possible for their futures.
What Your Gift Will Do
We are raising $5,000 to expand the Luke Library with books in both English and Swahili — novels, histories, technical references, and graphic novels — along with subscriptions to Kenya's two leading English-language newspapers and one trade magazine for each of our four programs. For students who have never had access to reading material beyond a shared classroom textbook, this library is a window to the world they are working so hard to join.
As NTS founder Jones Obiria says: "People save their own lives. Our job is to provide the opportunity."