Next Step Foundation, Nairobi (2026)

01/09/2026

Policy and advocacy are essential to ensuring that African Sign Languages are recognized, protected, and meaningfully included in education, digital technologies, and national development frameworks.

Join Session 3 of the Pan-African Sign Language Convening Webinar as Deaf and hard-of-hearing communities, advocates, policymakers, researchers, educators, innovators, OPDs, funders, and development partners come together to discuss how stronger policies and coordinated advocacy can advance the inclusion of African Sign Languages across the continent.

This session will explore the recognition of African Sign Languages in national legislation and disability frameworks, their inclusion in education and digital technologies, the role of key advocates and institutions, and the policy, funding, and implementation challenges that continue to limit progress.

📅 Thursday, 3 September 2026
⏰ 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM EAT | 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM CAT | 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM WAT | 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM GMT
💻 Virtual
🔗 Register by 2 September 2026: https://bit.ly/4yadUTA

Participants requiring accessibility support are encouraged to indicate their needs during registration.

Together, we can strengthen advocacy, influence policy, and help build a more inclusive future where African Sign Languages are recognized, represented, and supported across education, technology, and society.

31/08/2026

A significant milestone for inclusive technology skilling in Kenya. 🎓

We recently celebrated a cohort of young people with diverse disabilities, including participants with visual impairments, as they completed three months of intensive AWS Solutions Architect training.

For persons with disabilities, advanced technology training still comes with real barriers: inaccessible learning platforms, few openings, and persistent assumptions about what they can achieve. This cohort worked through all of it, building practical cloud architecture skills in an environment designed around different accessibility needs. What we watched grow alongside the technical ability was confidence.

Graduation is another step towards young people with disabilities participating in, competing within, and helping shape the digital economy. Our focus now turns to the next part of that journey: connecting these skills to meaningful opportunities for employment, career growth, and economic participation.

The training forms part of the Unlocking Opportunities Programme, supported by the Mastercard Foundation, which seeks to unlock business and job opportunities for over 7,000 young people with disabilities in Kenya.

Congratulations to every graduate. 👏

21/08/2026

The and (HAIDI) is conducting the Pan-African Convening Sign Language Research & Innovation Survey to better understand the state of sign language across different countries and regions.

We would like to hear from more stakeholders across the continent.

If you are a sign language researcher, interpreter, educator, Deaf community member, disability advocate, innovator, policymaker, organisation working with Deaf communities, or other relevant stakeholder, your perspective is valuable.

Your input will help us:

· Understand the current state of sign language research and practice across Africa
· Identify existing gaps, needs, and opportunities
· Gain a better understanding of the realities in different countries and regions
· Inform future research, collaboration, innovation, and support

We encourage you to complete the survey and also share it with colleagues and networks working in sign language, Deaf inclusion, accessibility, disability, education, technology, and related areas.

🔗 Complete the survey here:
https://bit.ly/4zw0raj

Every response helps us build a more representative picture of sign language across Africa.

17/08/2026

Great conversation last week at the CEO & Executive Leaders Breakfast Roundtable on Disability Inclusion and Future Workforce Development, hosted by Riziki Source as part of the Unlocking Opportunities consortium, with support from the Mastercard Foundation.

Our Head of Diversity and Culture, Allan Maonga Were (MIHRM), spoke on inclusive talent acquisition and how a genuinely inclusive pipeline creates lasting value for business, not just for the individuals hired.

He shared the panel with:

◆ Charles J. Warria, Programs Director at inABLE: disability inclusion as a competitive advantage
◆ Alfred Makere, Advocate of the High Court of Kenya: building inclusive, high-performing workplaces
◆ Susan Wekesea, Chief Legal Officer at NCPWD: the legal framework, employer obligations, and incentives for disability inclusion

Good to be in the room with our consortium partners, inABLE, Humanity & Inclusion, and Riziki Source, pushing this conversation forward.

12/08/2026

Join the team, lead our regional impact!

At Next Step Foundation, we are committed to empowering women and young people with disabilities to access fulfilling economic opportunities. To scale our impact in 2026, we are looking for a Regional Coordination Consultant to lead our program implementation across Nakuru region.

If you are a proactive professional with experience in community mobilization, stakeholder engagement, and inclusive programming, we want to hear from you! You will play a vital role in coordinating youth skilling and digital learning initiatives directly within our regional hubs.

How to contribute to this mission: 👉 View the full JD and apply here: https://nextstepfdn.org/career/regional-coordinator-nakuru/

Apply by: 26th August 2026

Women and Persons with Disabilities are strongly encouraged to apply!

04/08/2026

SESSION 2 RECAP | AI & Sign Language Technologies
What will it take to build AI that truly serves Deaf communities across Africa?
If you missed our Pan-African Sign Language Convening Webinar on 29 July, you can watch the full recording link in the comments

Hosted by HAIDI (Hub for AI and Disability Inclusion) and ADDN (Africa Disability Data Network), Session 2 brought together innovators,researchers, and members of the Deaf community to explore the opportunities and challenges shaping AI-powered sign language technologies across the continent.

Ishara AI (Kenya) showcased a bi-directional translation platform enabling seamless communication between text, speech, and sign language. The platform has already processed 30,000+ API requests and is powered by a growing dataset of 3,000+ sign language videos.

SignTalk by Responsible AI Labs demonstrated a healthcare communication solution that enables real-time conversations between healthcare providers and Deaf patients. Built on 85,000+ Ghanaian Sign Language videos, the system achieves 93.06% accuracy and is already serving 32,000+ users across 10+ countries.

The key takeaway was ; the future of sign language AI will not be determined by better algorithms alone. It depends on access to high-quality, diverse, and openly shared sign language data. Without collaborative datasets, inclusive AI cannot scale.
The session concluded with three clear priorities:
✅ Build shared, open-source sign language datasets and annotation infrastructure.
✅ Design technologies that are accessible and affordable from the start.
✅ Strengthen partnerships so the cost of access does not fall on Deaf communities.

Thank you to our speakers, moderators, sign language interpreters, and every Deaf community member who contributed their expertise and lived experience to this important conversation.
📅 Next up: Session 3 – Policy & Advocacy | 26 August

27/07/2026

Verify with us first.

At Next Step Foundation, we are committed to ensuring that every communication representing our work is accurate and respectful, and that it protects the dignity of the people we serve, especially persons with disabilities.

This includes:
• Using person-centred, rights-based disability language
• Protecting participant privacy and personal data
• Ensuring our name and logo are used only with authorization
• Accurately representing our partnerships and programmes

If you come across publications, adverts or announcements referencing Next Step Foundation, we encourage you to verify directly with us on +254 729 303 826, by emailing [email protected], on our social media, or by visiting nextstepfdn.org before registering or sharing personal information.

📩 [email protected] | 📞 +254 729 303 826 | 🌐 nextstepfdn.org

23/07/2026

Every young person deserves the opportunity to learn, work, and thrive. Yet across Eastern and Southern Africa, young people with disabilities are up to five times more likely to be outside education and not in employment or training than their peers. (UNICEF, 2023).

Behind this statistic are millions of young people with the skills, ideas, and ambition to contribute. Too often, the barriers they face have little to do with ability and everything to do with access.

When we invest in accessible education, digital skills, inclusive workplaces, and equitable employment opportunities, everyone benefits. Businesses gain talent. Communities grow stronger. Economies become more resilient.

15/07/2026

Today is World Youth Skills Day. This year's theme, "Skills for a Shared Future," lands at a real inflection point: AI, the green transition, and a fast-changing world of work are reshaping what it means to be "skilled" at all. Globally, 1 in 5 young people are not in employment, education, or training; for young women, it is more than 1 in 4. Even those who do work often cannot find decent work: over half of young workers globally are in informal employment, without the security or protections that come with formal jobs.

For young people with disabilities, these gaps are wider still, and too rarely talked about.

Closing this gap takes more than skilling; it requires real access to learning, to technology, and to workplaces willing to change. It takes trusting young people to lead, not just including them as an afterthought. And it takes employers, institutions, and communities, all of us, doing our part to build systems where every young person can actually thrive.

A shared future has to be built by everyone.

08/07/2026

Innovation thrives through collaboration.
The Hub for AI and Disability Inclusion (HAIDI) is bringing together innovators, researchers, universities, investors, innovation hubs, and organizations to build a stronger ecosystem for inclusive innovation across Africa.

By connecting people, ideas, and opportunities, we are creating a space where knowledge is shared, partnerships flourish, and accessible technologies can reach the communities that need them most. Together, we can ensure that Persons with Disabilities are not just included in Africa's digital transformation, but are helping lead it.

Join the HAIDI Network today to connect with like-minded changemakers, expand your impact, and contribute to a future where AI and innovation are accessible to everyone. https://forms.office.com/r/aFgN5LdTzp

Responsible AI Lab | RAIL Maseno Centre for Applied Artificial Intelligence (MCAAI) Assistive Technologies for Disability Trust International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Artificial Intelligence for Development (AI4D)

Next Step Foundation

01/09/2026

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