Nairobi Youth Centers Offer Homework Support for After-School Hours

A growing number of youth centres in Nairobi are now providing structured after-school homework support to students, offering a critical academic lifeline for learners who lack quiet study spaces or adult supervision at home. Facilities such as the One-Stop Youth Centre along Haile Selassie Avenue feature tutoring programmes, study rooms, and volunteer-led mentoring to help learners complete their assignments.
The initiative is especially important in informal settlement areas where children often study under challenging conditions. According to a report presented by education practitioners in Nairobi’s informal settlements, such programmes combine homework help with mentoring in life skills, parental counselling, and academic support, thereby boosting both learning outcomes and self-confidence. Youth centres like Mathare Youth Group also run community libraries to provide a safe, quiet environment for students to study, leveraging volunteer support to help keep learners on track.
Volunteers—many of them youth themselves or community members—play a pivotal role in these programmes, offering homework help, mentoring, and reading support. Partnerships with organizations like Adventure Volunteer also engage international and local volunteers to assist with tutoring and academic guidance in Nairobi’s youth centres.Centre coordinators say this model not only helps students academically but also fosters a sense of community and purpose, as older volunteers mentor younger learners who face similar socioeconomic challenges.
Looking ahead, program organisers plan to expand the homework support model to more youth centres across Nairobi, particularly within underserved wards. They aim to deepen partnerships with community groups, youth organizations, and education stakeholders to provide consistent after-school academic resources. If scaled effectively, these youth-centre based programmes could become a core part of Nairobi’s strategy to improve educational outcomes and close achievement gaps for students in informal settlements.