"Every pencil,
every classroom, every meal served is a reminder of what we can achieve together."
Matthew Norton, Founder & CEO of Memusi Foundation
Matthew's journey from carrying a single pencil into a Maasai community to building schools that have changed thousands of lives is proof that ordinary people can do extraordinary things.
Read his story - and become part of it.
How Memusi began.
Matthew Norton was 24 years old, working full time, with no background in international development. What he had was a simple instinct: that a child without access to education deserves someone to show up for them.
It started with a pencil. He opened Google, typed "pencils, kids, Africa," and found a community in Magadi, Kenya trying to provide education for their children with almost no resources. He sent stationery. He went to see it arrive. And he didn't stop going back.
Twenty years of going back.
One classroom became two. Two became a school. A school became three. A programme in Tanzania. Six hundred children becoming a thousand. The first cohort of Memusi students graduating — and some returning, years later, as teachers.
The growth was never chased. It followed the relationships. Communities in Magadi asked for more. A teacher started a school under a tree in Nasaru and asked Memusi to help build it into something permanent. Children on the streets of Nairobi needed food and someone to show up — so Memusi showed up.
Twenty years on, Memusi reaches over a thousand children in school and 150 young people on the streets of Nairobi every week. None of it came from a grand plan. It came from listening, and from not stopping.
The journey.
2004
Supporting Maasai Heritage Preservation Foundation with stationary.
2005
Register MHPF UK with UK Charity Commission.
2005
Commit to Memusi School to build one classroom per year.
2006
Memusi introduces free healthcare.
2007
Memusi Founds the building of TEAM School in Tanzania.
2015
Memusi agrees partnership to build Memusi B.
2015
First Memusi students graduate.
2017
Memusi agrees to support Nasaru School with classroom construction.
2018
Memusi builds first innovation classrooms.
2019
The first street child christmas project begins.
2022
See The Child warm kitchen begins.
2022
Junior Secondary School is introduced and Memusi runs to grade 9.
An Ordinary Story.
From a Pencil to a Movement.
An Ordinary Story is Matthew Norton's account of how a single pencil, carried into a Maasai community in 2003, grew into a movement that has changed thousands of lives in Kenya. Part memoir, part mission — and completely impossible to put down.
"Everyone who wants to do good in the world but isn't quite sure where to start should buy this book... Beautifully written. I couldn't put it down"
Amazon Review
An Ordinary Place.
The proceeds from An Ordinary Story have been used to open An Ordinary Place — a community centre in Kibera, Nairobi bringing together a range of projects that support young people. From homework clubs and cooking demonstrations to a free shop stocked with clothes and shoes and free sanitary pads, it is a space built around education, dignity, and empowerment.
Like everything Memusi does, it started with listening. An Ordinary Place exists because the people it serves helped shape what it became.
The story is still being written.
Follow Matthew on Instagram or sign up to the newsletter to hear where it goes next.