When Youth Lead: Lewis Isn’t Waiting for Opportunity—He’s Creating It

When Youth Lead: Lewis Isn’t Waiting for Opportunity—He’s Creating It.

Meet Lewis Kachembere: Turning Skills into Opportunity
Lewis is a young, determined changemaker whose journey reflects resilience, creativity, and purpose. Like many young people in Malawi, Lewis faces limited economic opportunities, but he chooses to respond with action, learning practical skills and sharing them with others.

In communities where unemployment and economic exclusion remain major challenges for youth, access to practical, income-generating skills can mean the difference between stagnation and progress. Malawi’s young population holds immense potential, yet too often lacks the resources to translate talent into livelihoods.

For Lewis and many of his peers, the challenge is not a lack of motivation, but limited access to training, tools, and support systems that enable sustainable entrepreneurship. Without these, skills remain untapped and opportunities out of reach.

Today, Lewis is doing more than building his own future. He is uplifting others. In one moment, he is teaching fellow youths how to produce soap (cover photo), transferring knowledge that can generate immediate income. In another, he is producing organic manure, contributing to climate-smart agriculture and lowering production costs for local farmers. These moments, captured in action, represent transformation in motion.

Lewis producing organic manure

Through its Youth Economic Justice & Financial Inclusion initiative, the Grown Too Quick Foundation (GTQF) is supporting Lewis’ continued skills development, entrepreneurship, and pathway to social mobility, ensuring that talent meets opportunity.

Lewis’s story reminds us that investing in young people is not charity; it is justice, sustainability, and shared progress. When young people are equipped, trusted, and supported, they do not just change their own lives; they strengthen entire communities.

This is what investing in young people looks like in practice.

👉 Learn more about GTQF’s initiatives and how we support youth-led solutions HERE