OUR STORY
Why Mugeni
Mugeni means 'guest' or 'stranger/foreigner' in Swahili.
Mugeni was founded in 2005 by Dieu-Donne Tambwe Kawende, a migrant from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Mr Kawende founded Mugeni in order to help Congolese migrants and those from the ethnic minority community to gain basic IT skills and knowledge in order to improve their career prospects. Mr Kawende found that many individuals from this background struggled to attain professional careers in the UK due to different barriers, a lack of IT skills being one of them and he wanted to address this problem.
Mr Kawende went on to completing the European Computer Driving License (ECDL) as well as the CompTIA A+ with a distinction and became a fully qualified IT trainer, as he already held a masters degree in engineering.
He then decided to set up the charity to support the Congolese community as well as the ethnic minority community by providing IT training courses, translation services, advice and support. These services helped many individuals most coming from Africa/Francophone African countries and spoke English as a second language.
Mr Kawende wanted to help this particular community as there was a growing number of people from the ethnic minority who struggled to gain high-paying jobs due to lack of IT skills and the language barrier. This was when Mugeni Association came into existence, improving the lives of the 'strangers' in the UK.
Mugeni Association made a great impact within the community it was supporting with its members becoming self employed IT technicians and others obtaining high profile roles such as IT Support Officers.
In 2018, Mugeni gained new board members and trustees who brought forward a new focus in order to tackle a more current issue, which was to support young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. The new focus was directed by Patricia Adele Kawende, the current chairman of Mugeni.
Patricia has been a member of Mugeni since the beginning, starting as a volunteer, and later becoming a trustee. During this time she was also supporting the charity with creative ideas and branding solutions.
Patrica saw the need to support young children from disadvantaged backgrounds after witnessing a growing number of cases amongst the young people getting involved in criminal activities and failing in their education, with many cases involving young black youths being affected by this. After several discussions the team at Mugeni made it a mission to tackle this issue and started by rebranding the charity.
It was clear that there were underlying reasons for such issues and Mugeni decided to target this situation by focusing its attention on developing enrichment programmes for the young people and inspire them to build their skills and use their talents from an early age.
In the early 2019 Mugeni officially rebranded to Mugeni Montage and launched the new initiatives where the focus was to build young lives, because they are the future!
Tomorrow's Future Leaders
We believe that it is important to nurture the talents of the young people from an early age because if they understand that they have choices then it is unlikely that they would despise that. Many young people from disadvantaged backgrounds get involved with a negative crowd because of the lack of opportunities.
We see the need to offer a solution to the creativity, drive and ambition many youths from disadvantaged backgrounds have but with lack of outlets that provide opportunities, encouragement and access to nurture and grow their talents. In a changing world of work, where traditional careers may no longer seem suitable for a generation growing up in a rapidly changing society with so many more opportunities available, young people are pushing boundaries in the ideas, and talent they possess.
However, these assets may remain nothing more than dreams, unattainable without the appropriate know-how and encouragement. Therefore, not only does our courses provide useful theoretical and practical input, it is also a source of valuable mentoring. This is support which young people cannot access at school nor is it easily accessible elsewhere.