Later this month, I’ll travel to Kenya with my family and the Conexus team. This is a trip I have wanted to make for years because so much of what Conexus has become is tied to Kenya, and I am looking forward to finally meeting the people and communities we are connected to.
Some of the nurses I am most proud to have worked with started their careers in Kenya, and I’ve heard their stories for years - what it meant for them to leave home, move across the world and build their careers in the States. This trip is a chance for me to see where those stories began and to better understand the people, places and experiences that shaped them.
Our social impact journey
We've always wanted Conexus to have a positive impact beyond the work we do as a business, but in 2022 that ambition really began to take shape as a more defined part of what we do. At the heart of that is our mission to make the world a healthier place for future generations.
We believe we can be most impactful by using the community and expertise we have built throughout our organisation to support the wellbeing of people, and over time this has led us to focus our social impact work around three key areas: health, education and communities. These pillars help guide the work we do and the organisations we choose to support, while giving our own community a say in where we can have the most impact.
Kenya has become an important part of our journey, largely because of the connection we already have through the healthcare professionals we work with. Over the years, what has struck me is the consistency of the talent coming through and the contribution they make to the healthcare systems they join.
That connection has given us a much better understanding of the communities many of our healthcare professionals come from and has naturally led us to look at how we can support them beyond the careers we help build.
Making an impact in local communities
One of the things I’m most looking forward to on the trip is spending time with some of the organisations we support in Kenya and seeing their work first-hand.
We'll be visiting Village HopeCore in Tharaka South, where Conexus has helped expand a maternal and child health clinic. The clinic provides much-needed care to families in an area where access to healthcare can be limited, particularly for mothers and children. Supporting Village HopeCore means we can help strengthen healthcare in rural communities, ensuring people have access to the care they need at a local level.
We’ll also visit UCESCO Africa, which runs medical camps in Nairobi, bringing healthcare services directly into communities. Their work provides access to essential healthcare for people who may otherwise struggle to access it and gives us another opportunity to support causes that are already working closely with the communities they serve.
Our visit to Shining Hope for Communities (SHOFCO) is an opportunity to explore how we can continue to expand our impact in Kenya. As a community-based organisation, SHOFCO works across a range of areas including healthcare, education, and economic empowerment, helping communities to build greater access to the resources and opportunities they need.
It was our own healthcare professional community that brought SHOFCO to our attention. Their connections to the communities they come from give us a valuable perspective on where support is needed and what matters most locally. It’s an important part of how we shape our social impact work, listening to the people within our own community and using what we learn from them to help direct our support where it can have the most meaning.
Our community grant initiative is another part of that. We encourage our healthcare professionals to nominate causes and organisations that they believe we should support, and four of the recipients so far this year have been in Kenya. For me, it’s another example of the role our community can play in shaping where we focus our support.
Supporting the next generation
Education is the other part of that work that I’m particularly looking forward to during the trip. We’ll be presenting our first Conexus scholarships in Kenya to final-year nursing students at the University of Nairobi, which is something I’ve been looking forward to for some time.
After spending so many years working with nurses who began their careers in Kenya and seeing where those careers have taken them, there’s something particularly meaningful about meeting students who are just about to take that first step, and I’m interested to hear what they hope to do with the careers they are about to build.
There is a wider connection between the education and healthcare we support in Kenya and the careers of the nurses who come through that system. Many of the nurses we work with go on to build their careers in the United States, while continuing to support their families and stay closely connected to the communities they came from.
That means the impact of good education and healthcare can be felt in more than one place, from the patients those nurses care for in the U.S. to the families and communities they continue to support back home. Through our community grants and partnerships with grassroots organisations, we have an opportunity to contribute to those communities too, and to keep some of that support connected to the places where so many of those careers began.
Building for the future
I think about the future differently now that I have children of my own. You become more conscious of what you are building and the kind of world you want them to inherit, but also of the experiences you want to give them along the way. I’m looking forward to having them with me in Kenya and being able to share some of that experience as a family, while also showing them a part of the world that has become such an important part of Conexus.
It has also made me reflect on what building Conexus means beyond the business itself. The nurses we work with, the students we are supporting and the organisations we partner with are all part of something that will continue long after any individual interaction with us. There is a responsibility in that, but also a real opportunity to make a lasting contribution.
I hope the trip gives me a better understanding of how we can continue to do that in Kenya, not simply by helping nurses build careers internationally, but by supporting the education, healthcare and communities that sit behind those careers. For me, that is what makes this trip particularly important, and I’m looking forward to seeing how we can continue to build on the relationships and work that are already there.
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