Wawira Njiru is redefining what it means to build social impact at scale. A Kenyan social entrepreneur, nutritionist and philanthropist, Njiru is the Founder and CEO of Food4Education, an organisation that has grown from a modest initiative serving 25 children into one of Kenya’s most significant school feeding programmes. Her work demonstrates how nutrition, education, agriculture and employment can be brought together to create a model capable of transforming communities.
Njiru began Food4Education in 2012 after returning to Kenya with a degree in Nutrition Science from the University of South Australia. What started with a simple desire to ensure children in her hometown had enough food to remain focused in school gradually became a much larger ambition. Today, Food4Education serves more than 660,000 children across over 1,900 schools in 17 counties, while its operations have generated thousands of jobs and created demand across local agricultural and food supply chains.
What distinguishes Njiru’s approach is that she has refused to treat school feeding simply as charity. Food4Education works with governments, families, schools, local farmers, suppliers and other partners to build a sustainable system around every meal. Its Tap2Eat technology, which uses cashless NFC wristbands, has also helped modernise how children access meals while generating data that can connect nutrition, education and local economic activity. Njiru has increasingly positioned school feeding as economic infrastructure, arguing that feeding children can simultaneously support farmers, create jobs and improve educational outcomes.
Her impact has earned recognition across Africa and internationally. Njiru became the first recipient of the Global Citizen Youth Leadership Prize in 2018, was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and received the United Nations Kenya Person of the Year recognition in 2021. In 2024, she received the Skoll Award for Social Innovation and the Elevate Prize, while Food4Education was recognised among TIME100’s Most Influential Companies. Her growing influence has also taken her to global platforms including TED, where she presented a vision for expanding nutritious school meals to millions of African children.
In 2026, Njiru’s work reached another significant milestone when she was named the recipient of the German Africa Prize for her pioneering approach to connecting school feeding with local food production, employment and economic development. The recognition comes as Food4Education continues to scale its operations and pursue an even larger continental ambition. She has also recently received the 2026 DVF Leadership Award, further highlighting the global significance of her work.
Wawira Njiru’s journey is ultimately a story about seeing possibility where others see a problem. From 25 children and a small kitchen to hundreds of thousands of daily meals, her work has demonstrated that an African solution built around local communities can achieve extraordinary scale. As she looks beyond Kenya toward a future in which millions of African children can access nutritious school meals, Njiru is not simply feeding children. She is investing in their ability to learn, thrive and become the generation that shapes Africa’s future.
