About Me

I’m a Co-Active Coach and Writer who leads Lifesong Kenya, a charity organization that is giving boys a second chance and I believe that every person carries a story that is worth telling.

Hawi James Ouma, you have a way of making people feel seen and capable, and that is such a rare gift. Your kindness, patience, humor and the way you genuinely care about people makes you incredibly unique. I feel incredibly lucky to have had you as a mentor and even luckier to call you a friend.

My Story

I grew up without a father and believed I wasn’t good enough and carried this belief into adulthood. This changed when I was arrested in 2005 and spent 8 days at Makongeni Police Station. I was sitting inside an empty cell, thinking about how unlucky I was when a man who was with me in the cell came to talk to me.

“You look like you have grown up with a father and have your life well mapped out,” he said. “Can you share Bible stories with us and teach how to become better men?”

Three years later, I applied for a job as a TV Producer. In 2012, I met 100 young men at Nairobi Remand Prison and discovered they were carrying far heavier versions of the same wound I grew up with.

I started showing up without knowing what I was getting into. Lifesong Kenya grew from that decision. More than a decade later, I lead Lifesong, run Born for Greatness, serve as a Co-Active Coach, mentor university students through the Global Mentorship Initiative and write articles and create websites.

My Leader's Quest

Working with boys and young men who have faced neglect, abuse, exploitation, violence, wrongful incarceration and sexual assault has exposed me to the weight, stigma and trauma that boys endure to societal bias that treats boys and men as potential perpetrators.

This makes it hard to mobilize resources, raise funds and find partners for the work I have been doing for more than a decade. Every year, since 2012, I have looked for a solution, something that ties my lived-experience with fatherlessness, my work with boys who need healing and restoration and quest as a leader.

Adding Born for Greatness as a paid program to my work with boys enables me to amplify my impact as a leader beyond Lifesong. In addition to this, we will have an opportunity to earn income that can be channelled into our charity work and a platform to create jobs for young men exiting our Halfway House!

And as we do this, I also get to thrive in my gift as a writer and content creator, the things that I dreamt of doing when I was growing up.