How Kenya's Classrooms Are Filling a Healthcare Gap

Kenya is facing a healthcare workforce shortage with consequences that will be felt for generations — unless we act now.

A 2023 Health Labour Market Analysis estimates the health professional shortage in Kenya will nearly double from 2021 to 2030, with more than 114,000 additional health workers needing to be trained and employed to meet the population’s health needs. Based on current projections, this is unlikely to occur. 

As it stands now, critical health services remain inaccessible to many Kenyans:

• 78% of Kenyans say they worry about someone in their family getting sick and being unable to access or afford medical care. 

• 93% of health facilities don’t provide a complete range of basic outpatient services. For many Kenyans, this means showing up to a clinic with a sick child, infected wound, or a difficult pregnancy and leaving without the care needed to fully recover. 

• Kenya faces a severe doctor shortage, with just 1 doctor for every 5,725 patients, far below the World Health Organization's (WHO) recommended ratio of 1 per 1,000.

For children, the situation is even more dire. There is just 1 pediatrician for every 84,100 children, the equivalent of a single doctor responsible for every child in a mid-sized city, and nearly 17 times the WHO's recommended ratio of 1 per 5,000.

Waiting area at rural clinic in Kenya

A network of Community Health Promoters (CHPs) are trained in basic health skills to bridge these gaps in healthcare access through community-based education and preventative action, but the scale of need continues to outpace the CHP workforce. As of 2025, 107,000 CHPs serve approximately 8.8 million households – an important step forward, yet almost half of the population still lacks this critical safety net. 

The math is clear: Kenya’s health system is struggling to meet its population’s needs. The gap is significant — and without further investment in these education and community-based solutions, it will continue to widen.

The Population Isn't Waiting

Kenya's population is growing — and it skews young. UNICEF data shows that 46% of the total population in Kenya is below 18 years old. 

These young people are inheriting compounding health challenges: rising obesity rates, hypertension, HIV and other sexually transmitted infections — many of them preventable. The choices adolescents make today about nutrition, hygiene, and sexual health will shape public health outcomes and health system strain for decades to come.

The system, as it stands, is not equipped to meet them where they are.

Closing the Health Gap Through Education

Kenya is taking meaningful action to strengthen the health system. A new Partnership for Education of Health Professionals launched this year in Kenya invests heavily in competency-based training for the healthcare workforce. By targeting medical education systems, this investment signals that the key to a stronger health system is not just adding more health workers, but also ensuring that evidence-based training fully equips them to respond to evolving population health needs. 

“Competency-based education ensures our health workers are prepared to address the real health challenges communities face, from preventing and managing chronic diseases including diabetes and heart disease to delivering quality care at every level. This partnership… helps us bridge the gap between training and population health needs,” says Dr. Neema Kimambo, WHO Acting Representative to Kenya.

One Good Turn Global Health (OGT) is working in direct alignment with this call to action - while meeting young people where they live and learn every day. Our flagship School Health Agency, Resources, and Education (SHARE) Program harnesses the underutilized potential of schools to serve as community hubs for health promotion, strengthening the health ecosystem to extend beyond clinics and reach the growing school-age population. 

SHARE equips schools with the training and resources to provide essential health education and basic care directly in the classroom. Teachers are trained to serve as School Health Officers, ensuring that students receive quality health education, practice preventative habits, and have timely access to basic first aid and screening services – all of which reduce the burden on CHPs and underresourced clinics.

1 out of 3 Kenyans are school-age. By centering schools – the only institution that regularly reaches a majority of the world’s school-age children and adolescents – we can extend critical healthcare and health education to ⅓ of Kenya’s population.

To date, SHARE has been implemented at 150 schools, serving over 60,000 students across Kenya. Partner schools report a 95% increase in rates of malnutrition screenings, and a 78% increase in the provision of Oral Rehydration Solution (ORS) for diarrhea. Diarrhea and Iron-deficiency anemia (a form of malnutrition) are two of the leading causes of illness and death for school-age children worldwide. These numbers tell a story – when teachers are given the opportunity to learn practical health skills, they can directly impact the lives of their students.  

Students in One Good Turn's SHARE Program demonstrate life-saving first aid skills (wound care and infection prevention) taught by their teachers.

The SHARE model is designed to amplify this impact — one teacher, many students, year after year. This approach naturally expands into the greater community, reshaping generational patterns as students share new health knowledge and skills. 

School Health Programs Build a Healthier Future

Across Kenya, classrooms are full of curious students and teachers are eager to learn. The youngest global citizens are ready to build a healthier future than the one they inherited.

Educated young people break cycles of preventable illness, place less strain on an overburdened health system, and grow into healthier adults and parents. 

Your partnership with One Good Turn Global Health means more teachers trained, more students reached, and a stronger foundation for Kenya's next generation.

The need is urgent. Our model works. The question is: will you join us?