At the tender age of twelve, Reegan Kaberia lost his mother. His father soon remarried and Reegan went off to boarding school. It was a difficult, but formative time in his life, and ultimately it led him to his life’s work. Reegan knew he wanted to pursue a career working with children. “I understand an orphan because I reflect back on losing my mom. I know their loss.”
Reegan began his time at university with a plan to become an educator, but after working for six months in a children’s home, and seeing the crushing needs, he decided to pursue social work instead. Soon after graduation he began working for large international development organizations hoping to address the issues of poverty in his home country of Kenya. Unfortunately, he was disappointed by cycles of relief and dependency, and few sustainable changes in the lives of the communities he was serving.
While attending church one Sunday Reegan heard about Zoe Empowers. He learned about their empowerment model and was intrigued. After visiting the program in Rwanda he joined the team in 2007 as its first full-time employee. While a little skeptical of the results he saw in Rwanda, Reegan felt that empowerment was the right approach. As the program grew, Reegan was amazed by the sustainable results and power of God to transform lives through this program.
Reegan’s passion for the empowerment model was evident, as was his talent for training others to implement it across different cultures. In 2013 Reegan’s role expanded to include training for managers and program facilitators in other countries. In 2022 he was named the CEO, Global South, sharing the oversight of Zoe Empowers with his colleague, Gaston Warner, CEO,Global North.
When asked why the empowerment model has been successful across twelve countries and two continents over the past eighteen years Reegan says, “It’s because the model doesn’t belong to Zoe, or to anyone really, in fact it belongs to the kids. Along with their communities, they are the ones who make it work.”
In 2025 Zoe Empowers announced the opening of the Global South Office in Maua, Kenya. Reegan will be joined by Stanley Mwithia, Internal Auditor, and Ann Murithi, Monitoring and Evaluation Manager. The vision for this office is to provide training, oversight, and support to all current and future Zoe programs. “We want to enhance our accountability to the children we serve, the donors who support us, and all other stakeholders. To do that we need to continue strengthening our finance, monitoring and evaluation, and communications systems.” In addition, Reegan describes the importance of sharing experiences between all the countries which will be facilitated by this new office. “All the programs have opportunities for improving both systems and the program itself when we are willing to share our successes and challenges with one another.”
When asked what his vision is for the Office of the Global South, Reegan says, “I want to have an excellent technical team in place providing the best possible support for all existing programs while also expanding the program in developing countries. The need is great, Zoe Empowers has a model proven to work, and I want to see it benefit as many young people as possible.”