Our Mission

To advance, defend and preserve the common welfare of the Kenyan Diaspora.

Our Vision

One Diaspora One Voice.

Our Values

Working with others, in a spirit of generosity and mutual respect, we strive to treat everyone the way we like to be treated. AKDOi champions the cause of every Kenyan in the Diaspora to ensure that our welfare is held paramount at all times and our interests as a community are protected, advanced always. We value our diversity and heritage as the bonds that strengthen Kenyans of all backgrounds.
Our History
The idea of a global Kenyan Diaspora organization is itself as old as there has existed the Diaspora, it wasn’t formalized until recently. Kenyans who live outside Kenya have always clamored for a platform that provided a sense of has circulated amongst the Kenyan Diaspora for many years. Since the early 60s, immediately following independence, Kenyans left home to the diaspora in droves in search of better lives primarily through better education and business in their host countries. Most came to the United States and Europe.

The 1990s experienced record growth of the Kenyan Diaspora in numbers and upward mobility in education, careers and businesses. With this growth the Diaspora has been able to influence Kenya’s political and economic landscape through its financial leverage as the remittances grew and continue to grow exponentially, Diaspora-remittance. This rise in clout necessitated also gave rise to the need for a more organized approach in managing the relationship between the Diaspora and Kenya; several organizations, Mzalendo Movement, The Kenya coalition, Kenya Community Abroad, among others, sprung up.

The 2007-2008 Post-Election Violence in Kenya also was a pivotal turning point that saw a sharp uptick in the Diaspora’s involvement in Kenyan politics and the rise in pro-democracy and fair governance activism. We also demanded better stewardship of taxpayers’ money while promoting our own investments in the economy. The bottom line is that we wanted to and still demand to be part of the decision making in the affairs of the country; prominent Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren famously quipped during one her campaign stops in reference to political decisions by politicians, “if you are not at the dinner table, you are probably on the menu”– an aptly accurate description of the relationship between politicians in government and their constituents wherein politicians make decisions that benefit themselves at the detriment of the constituents, particularly in Kenya. The Kenyan Diaspora contributes tremendously to Kenya’s exchequer and get literary NOTHING in return. So among the issues that the diaspora wanted to confront is equitable representation and putting an end once and for all to “taxation without representation”.

That said, a team of leaders in the Diaspora who were fed up with the status quo and determined to advance the Diaspora’s welfare on a common platform decided to form the Association of Kenyan Diaspora Organizations, Inc. a coalition of folks and their organizations forging ahead to better the welfare of the Kenyan Diaspora as a whole. Our motto is ONE DIASPORA ONE VOICE, a goal that we all strive to attain.