Mwangi Mukami: Walking Alongside Youth & the Historically Excluded

Rev. Mwangi Mukami will share his philosophy of accompaniment, rooted in his lived experience, public service, and leadership through MLIFE Foundation. He will explore how walking alongside youth and historically excluded people can create pathways to healing, dignity, leadership, and self-determination.

Mwangi Mukami arrived in the U.S. in 2009, an asylee from political violence and persecution based on his sexuality in his native Kenya. Born in Kawangware, an impoverished neighborhood six miles west of Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, Mwangi grew up in a 10-by-12-foot room with his single mother and seven siblings. At 17, he joined the Children’s Cabinet of Kenya and was elected its president in 2003. He later served as founder and president of the National Youth Parliament of Kenya in 2004 and as Executive Director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Africa Foundation. Mwangi worked as a supervisor for SF’s Episcopal Sanctuary and Next Door Shelters, and later Chairman of the Shelter Monitoring Committee, overseeing 23 homeless service providers across the city. In 2017, he founded the U.S. arm of MLIFE Foundation in SF, which operates two programs: Meal2Lead, which serves youth ages 14 to 24, including youth who are justice-involved or struggling academically; and the Healing Circle Program, which provides wraparound services for people returning from California’s prison system.