Written by Cynthia Mukuria, CFK Africa’s Community Storyteller
Located in the heart of Kibera, CreaKids Sports Centre rarely goes quiet.
After school, children come through the doors. When programs are running, young people arrive eager to take part. On weekends, different teams head out for tournaments. The center keeps moving because Kibera keeps moving.
Calvince Oindi has worked at CreaKids for nine years and now serves as the Center Manager.
CreaKids did not set out to copy anyone. It started with a question: what need can we fill without competing with anybody?
The first answer was a school with sponsorships. Then the team looked more closely at what Kibera needed and what they actually had, and a resource center won out. It would take more children and work with schools instead of replacing them. It would give the community one place for learning, sports, mentorship, meals, and youth programs.
“There was a need for something that could have an impact on the community without competing with other organizations,” Calvince says. “That is when we came up with the idea of opening a resource center where everyone would be welcome.”
As education beyond Kibera moved online, many children in the community still had little or no access to computers. CreaKids wanted to change that. Local schools also lacked space for Physical Education, while children had energy, talent, and curiosity but no safe place to use them. So CreaKids opened a field, and the soccer game brought discipline, teamwork, and confidence.
A place to learn, play, eat and belong.
Calvince discovered the organization before he worked there. As a high school student, he watched people serve the community and create visible change. He still remembers thinking, if they can do it, why not me? When the opportunity came, he took it.
That same belief continues to guide his work. What motivates him is not the scale of the programs, but the small signs that a child’s future is opening up: a child arriving happy, staying in school, receiving a scholarship, gaining support from a well-wisher, or completing high school and going on to university.
More than 2,000 children and young people have participated in CreaKids programs. In the second week of August alone, the center recorded about 4,000 visits from Monday to Saturday. With capacity for roughly 400 children at a time, CreaKids operates in steady waves throughout the week, clear evidence of the demand it serves. Food is central to the support offered. A hungry child cannot concentrate, play, or remain engaged in learning. The feeding program removes one of the first and most significant barriers many families face.
2026 Community Champion: Leadership and Localization Award
CreaKids partners with more than 20 organizations within Kibera, another 20 beyond the community, and 30 schools.
CFK Africa honored CreaKids Sports Centre with the Leadership and Localization Award at its 25th Anniversary Community Awards, recognizing a locally driven model in which community members organize around the children instead of waiting for outside solutions.
The center takes on school dropout, unemployment, crime, substance abuse and gender inequality, and it uses Kibera’s own people to do it. Community members coach, mentor, protect, guide and hold the conversations that matter. Young people who once came through the program now come back to coach the ones behind them.
Football is also opening doors beyond Kibera. In December, CreaKids hopes to take children to Arusha, Tanzania, for a football trip. In August 2027, the team is planning to take 26 children to Norway, also through football. For children whose daily lives may not often take them far from home, these experiences can stretch their imagination and show them that the world is bigger than what they see every day.
The work has not been easy. Calvince knows that every decision comes with challenges. But he believes in continuing anyway.
“A moving person will always meet their luck,” he says.
That line captures the spirit of CreaKids. Keep moving. Keep building.
In Kibera, this kind of space matters because it gives children somewhere to go, people to guide them, and a reason to believe they are worth investing in.
***In honor of our 25th anniversary in 2026, this story is #17 of 25 Stories of Change, shared throughout the year and featuring youth and communities whose lives have been transformed by CFK Africa.