When he was living on the streets in an impoverished Kenyan village, barefoot and hungry, Michael Mungai Nyambura '10 (B.A.) '13 (M.S.) gave up his dream of becoming a lawyer. At best, perhaps, he could be a carpenter's apprentice. Today, thanks to serendipity, human generosity and his own tenacity, Mungai is a graduate student at Saint Joseph's University and co-founder of an international nonprofit, Harambee USA, Inc. — the word means "pulling together" in Swahili — created to help boys like himself back home. "In my wildest dreams, I never could have imagined this," he says of his journey from hopelessness to empowerment.

Mungai, 28, is completing his master's degree in international marketing in the Haub School of Business, gaining the tools to implement his grand vision to help transform the future of his country. He and the organization's co-founders, Mark Orrs '03 (B.S., Sociology) and Peter Seltzer '09 (B.S., Accounting), not only want to help individual children overcome social disadvantages, but also boost development among small businesses to help reduce Kenya's staggeringly high unemployment.

"There are so many talented youths who are unemployed," he says.

This is no small undertaking. But Mungai is passionately committed to helping his country. And given the stunning course his life has already taken, no dream seems unattainable.

Like many boys in his poor village in Dagoretti, Nairobi Province, Mungai left home at 15 years of age to alleviate the financial burden on his single mother, who was raising four children. He scrounged the streets as best as he could, selling scrap metal and plastic for recycling. Then an unlikely encounter had a profound impact on his life, changing the trajectory of his fate.

One day, he saw an American student carrying video cameras. He was overwhelmed by young street boys beseeching him in Swahili. "I told him, 'It's a gangster's dream to catch a tourist with an expensive video camera,'" Mungai says. Christof Putzel was a student at Connecticut College who was working on a film about homeless children and volunteering at an orphanage. "Of all the kids, he struck me as a special person," Putzel says of Mungai. "He has that impact on everyone he meets. Michael was brilliant, curious, trustworthy." He became Putzel's guide, translator, friend and a subject in the film, "Left Behind," which became a prize-winning documentary.

Putzel introduced Mungai to another American, Bonnie Graboski of Allentown, Pa., who was volunteering at an orphanage in the area and eventually created a program to educate street children. Seeing Mungai's promise and potential, she paid for his education through the end of high school. In turn, he tutored the children and co-founded Dagoretti4Kids (now Harambee Youth Kenya) in 2003 to house street boys. Mungai lived in the residence as housefather.

Meanwhile, Putzel's documentary inspired other volunteers to come to Kenya to help the street children. One of them was Orrs, the next agent of change in Michael's life. Orrs was so impressed by Mungai he persuaded him to complete an online application to Saint Joseph's from a cyber café in a nearby village. Then he returned home and advocated for Mungai to University leadership. In 2005, he called Mungai to tell him he'd been awarded a full scholarship to Saint Joseph's.

Mungai could have seen the extraordinary turn of events as a Cinderella chance to escape the deprivation of his life in Africa. Instead, even as he was adjusting to a country of unimaginable abundance, he began leveraging the opportunity on behalf of the boys he left behind.

"I felt like I was carrying responsibility," he says of his time at Saint Joseph's. "I owed some people my success so I had to stay focused. You can't wake up one day and forget the people who look to you as a father figure."

When he realized Saint Joseph's had no student organization dedicated to Africa, he founded Harambee SJU in 2006, sponsoring movies, lectures and other events on campus to raise student awareness. Then he began raising money through Harambee for Kenyan street boys, by selling T-shirts and doing other fundraisers. The response on campus was deeply gratifying to Mungai. So many students were interested that eventually student groups went on service trips with him to Kenya.

Beth Ford '99 (B.S.) '00 (M.S.), assistant director of campus ministry, says the student commitment to Harambee SJU is incredible. "This is a very engaged group of students dedicated to the support of Michael's original vision to raise awareness of and support for Kenyan youth," she says.

One former member of the organization, Liz Moyer '11 (B.S., Sociology), is working with Harambee USA to implement a project related to sustainable agriculture. "I moved to Kenya at the end of June and will be working with the Harambee Youth Center for the next year," she says. "The Summer Immersion Program trip to Tanzania changed my life, and I made a promise to myself that I'd return to East Africa one day. And here I am!"

Mungai graduated in 2010 with a double major in economics and philosophy. Meanwhile, Mungai, Orrs and Seltzer launched Harambee USA to expand the efforts of Dagoretti4Kids to also include entrepreneurial services to families affected by HIV/AIDS and coordinate youth self-help groups and community organizations.

The new organization also remains committed to offering rescue, shelter and education services to former street children — Harambee Youth Kenya has shepherded more than 50 street boys through its program since 2003.

To fundraise for their efforts, Mungai and his partners set up a table every month in Philadelphia at Old City's First Fridays with leaflets and African items for sale. They attend flea markets and held an art auction of work donated by a Kenyan artist.

The three young men are strategizing both how to grow their embryonic nonprofit, by aligning themselves with like-minded organizations and spreading the word — Mungai writes a blog for the Huffington Post — while they research microfinancing strategies to assist small businesses in Kenya.

Mungai credits Orrs and Seltzer with Harambee USA's growth, calling them "visionaries and pragmatists." But anyone involved with Mungai knows that the organization owes its success to his intelligence, foresight and strategic thinking. As he would say, "You haven't seen anything yet!"