After the 2024 Gen Z protests, one young Kenyan asked a simple question and turned it into a national push for the youth to get voter cards.
The other built a clock to make Kenya’s trillion-shilling debt impossible to ignore.
At 26, Allan Ademba, the face behind the ‘Tuko Kadi’ initiative , transformed the phrase into a rallying cry during the mass voter registration drive, urging young Kenyans to move beyond online activism and show up at IEBC registration centres.
Both have made social media central to their civic work and have previously been featured in the Daily Nation and NTV.
French Institute for Research in Africa (IFRA-Nairobi) Director Dr. Sylvain Racaud (left) presents an award to Ellen Kawila, a civic educator and innovator known for creating the Kenya Debt Clock, during the Youth Congress’ Katiba Roll of Honour award ceremony at Alliance Française in Nairobi on August 28, 2026.
Photo credit: Bonface Bogita | Nation Media Group
Ademba uses it to mobilise young people from their screens to registration centres, while Kawila uses technology to make public finances more transparent and easier to understand.
Different tools, but a shared goal: getting young Kenyans to participate, ask questions and hold power to account.
They were among six Kenyans recognised at this year’s Katiba Day celebrations in Nairobi for using their skills, platforms and courage to champion the values of the 2010 Constitution.
“Civic activism did not begin with a grand institution or a powerful political office,” Ademba said. “It began with young people.”
Born and raised in Kibera, Ademba has used his photojournalism, social media and civic mobilisation to engage young Kenyans on governance and participation.
During the mass voter registration exercise earlier this year, Ademba coined the phrase ‘Tuko Kadi,’ a simple expression that quickly resonated with young Kenyans and became a catchphrase far beyond its original campaign.
According to Raphael Obonyo, Youth Congress Chief Executive Officer, what started as a few simple words grew into a powerful tool for national civic mobilisation.
“Politicians picked it up. Activists used it. Artists embraced it. Ordinary Kenyans repeated it,” Obonyo said.
As a result, Ademba said that the voter registration campaign had already helped push the number of registered voters involved in the movement to about 2.9 million, up from 2.6 million at the end of the first wave.
“That means within that period, we were able to register 300,000 new people,” he said.
However, for Ademba, the actual test of civic engagement is whether it moves from screens and boardrooms to communities.
“Civic duties must not end in the boardrooms, but we have to take them to the ground,” he argued.
He has used photography to tell stories, journalism to amplify issues and social media to reach an audience that traditional civic education often struggles to connect with.
“We have been mobilising people to vote,” he said.
“Registration is the first step in the election. We young people have to encourage our friends, cousins and peers to register as voters.”
Ademba wants them to occupy spaces where decisions are made, arguing that it would be a disservice if millions of young people were mobilised to register but were not represented in elective positions. Registering at least six million voters and getting at least 100 elective positions filled by young people will be a dream come true.
The Youth Agenda Executive Director Victor Nyongesa (left) presents a Katiba Roll of Honour award to Allans Ademba, a Kenyan photojournalist, youth advocate and human rights defender, during the Youth Congress’ award ceremony at Alliance Française in Nairobi on August 28, 2026. Ademba was among individuals honoured for championing the 2010 Constitution.
Photo credit: Bonface Bogita | Nation Media Group
It continues the energy of the Gen Z-led protests of June 2024, when young Kenyans challenged the government over accountability, taxation and governance. However, a protester who is registered to vote, he argues, has another avenue for exercising power.
“A registered voter will always be better than an unregistered protester,” he said. “We need to occupy decision-making spaces.”
The platform visualises debt accumulation, interest estimates, debt per citizen and debt-to-GDP ratios using publicly available information from institutions including the Central Bank of Kenya, the National Treasury, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
Ellen Kawila, a civic educator and innovator known for creating the Kenya Debt Clock, an online platform that visualises Kenya’s national debt in real time, and winner of the Katiba Roll of Honour, speaks during the Youth Congress’ award ceremony at Alliance Française in Nairobi on August 28, 2026.
Photo credit: Bonface Bogita | Nation Media Group
“The Kenyan Debt Clock is a real-time visualisation of Kenya’s national debt,” she said.
It also traces borrowing patterns and highlights major projects and controversies that have shaped Kenya’s public finance debate.
“It provides estimates based on publicly available macro data. It is a projection, not a live feed.”
Her model uses a baseline of about Sh12.75 trillion in total debt and calculates projected increases based on the fiscal deficit.
Using an example of a Sh4.5 trillion budget against Sh3.3 trillion in revenue, Kawila calculates a deficit of about Sh1.1 trillion, translating it into an estimated increase of roughly Sh37,392 per second.
“I just want people to understand where the money goes,” she said, “and why debt keeps rising every second.”
Kawila began engaging in civic education online, particularly on TikTok, around the time of the Finance Bill protests. Like many young Kenyans, she was frustrated by what she viewed as excessive taxation and wanted to understand the policies behind the anger.
Ellen Kawila, a civic educator and innovator who has created an online system to help track Kenya’s national debt in real time, during an interview at Nation Centre .
Photo credit: Bonface Bogita | Nation Media Group
An incident involving Isiolo Governor Abdi Guyo before a parliamentary committee in late 2024 caught her attention, particularly questions over county expenditure.
The deeper she went, the more questions emerged.
She examined county audit reports for the 2023/24 financial year, looking at allocations from the national government and locally collected revenue.
She became particularly interested in how much money counties were spending on recurrent expenses compared with development.
Her work also led her into the country’s most controversial borrowing stories, including the Eurobond, the Standard Gauge Railway, the Arror and Kimwarer dams and the National Youth Service.
“These are not merely scandals buried in old headlines. They are part of a larger question about accountability and ultimately about who pays when public money is poorly managed," she said.
The stories of Ademba and Kawila come against the backdrop of the Gen Z uprising of 2024, which changed the national conversation about the Constitution.
“The 2024 Gen Z protests demonstrated something fundamental: that young Kenyans had realised that the Constitution gave them power," Obonyo said.
However, there was another lesson. The Constitution can remain only a book if citizens do not use it.
“The Katiba is a mere book if you don't give it power,” Obonyo emphasised.
For him, the events of 2024 showed that a generation had come of age and was willing to demand accountability, responsiveness and responsibility.
“The Constitution was just resting until the Gen Zs arrived,” he said.
The Youth Congress and its partners used the annual event to celebrate individuals who have found different ways of advancing the values and promises of the 2010 Constitution.
For Ademba, the recognition was particularly personal.
“This is actually the first award that I'm receiving in my life,” he told the audience.
The voter registration campaign continues and so does his call for young people to participate in the 2027 elections—not simply as voters but as candidates and decision-makers.
The Kenya Debt Clock is barely five months old, yet Kawila has already faced attempts to interfere with its programming, she says.
She initially spent more than Sh100,000 on hosting, supported by friends, and now pays about Sh10,300 a month to keep the platform running.
Her dream was to study medicine, but financial constraints derailed her plans.
She has survived through informal work and small businesses, at one point selling chang’aa to make ends meet. Today, she sells beauty products online while continuing her civic education work.
According to Obonyo, young Kenyans are not waiting to be handed traditional platforms. They are creating their own.
“The platforms are as simple as a phrase that catches fire or a clock that never stops ticking.” He said.
Obonyo urged young people not to leave constitutional activism on the streets or confine it to moments of protest.
“The language of the Constitution must follow citizens into every space where decisions are made.” He explained. “Into elections, public finance, social media, Parliament, communities.”
