It has never been easy growing up in Kibera for the now established, serial entrepreneur Yema Khalif who is currently based in San Francisco Bay Area in California.
Yema Khalif has never forgotten, not even once, where he came from despite being a founder of a successful athleisure clothing brand called YEMA which he co-founded with his wife, Hawi Awash who is from Ethiopia.
The valedictorian and a Summa Cum Laude honoree graduate at Dominican University in the U.S.A who also gave the senior class commencement speech is bent on giving back to his community, not only in his home country, Kenya but also in Ethiopia where his wife comes from.
Yema Khalif and Hawi Awash under their brand YEMA, together they have been giving scholarships to vulnerable children in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and sponsoring 30 kids in Kibera slum for the longest time now without asking for anything in return.
Just the way Yema Khalif was given an opportunity by the philanthropist, down-to-earth, gifted, and internationally acclaimed actor, Connie Nielsen who kept her promise of taking him to University after working on a movie ‘Lost In Africa’ together which was shot partly in the Kibera slum Yema Khalif Manyanki intends to give back to his community and inspire and give hope to the hopeless by helping in any way possible.
Yema Khalif whose story was once featured by NBC Bay Area touched so many people and highlighted how proud and humbling Connie Nielsen — Yema Khalif considers her as his American mom— was when she saw Yema Khalif finally graduating from University living his dream which was something he wanted to do since he was a young actor back in Kibera which is the largest slum in the world.
Yema came back to Kibera this year together with his wife, Hawi to empower individuals from Kibera by providing modeling opportunities.
He hired all Kibera crew and put together YEMA Chocolate City Runway show in Kibera which was a sight to behold seeing all the models walking along the railway’s tracks that runs inside the Kibera slum wearing apparels designed by Yema Khalif.
The models he hired have diverse backgrounds with different stories, religions and different tribes which proves that indeed Yema doesn’t discriminate and/or favor anything or anyone because he believes in a fair opportunity for all regardless of their background/s.
The models who were modeling for Yema Khalif and Hawi Awash’s YEMA brand for the YEMA Chocolate City Runway show were: Rogers Thiga, Ted Nyaima, Daniel Owino Okoth, Miryahm Njoki, Joyce Nzilani Nduku, John Ngatia, Zuleika Mohamed, Ibrahim Swaleh, Joyce Wanjiru, and Zulekha Risper.
Below are the photos of Kibera models modeling for Yema Khalif and Hawi Awash’s YEMA apparel which had the entire Kibera community involved and being a part of the YEMA Chocolate City Runway show.
Images credits:
On the images: Kibera’s professional models as hired by Yema Khalif
Credits: Sobukwe Nonkwe, Abdul Khalifa, Rashid Clave
