🌍 Global Development Project — January 2026 Newsletter
Extending Love and Hope | A Strong Start to 2026
Dear GDP Friends and Partners,
As we step into a new year, I want to begin with one simple phrase: thank you.
Our 2025 Year in Review closed with gratitude, reflection, and awe at what you helped make possible. This January, we turn our eyes forward — with confidence, humility, and renewed resolve. The work continues. And the vision is growing.
2026 is not about doing more for the sake of more. It’s about doing what works — deeply, faithfully, and sustainably — in the places that need it most.
🏗️ Looking Ahead — The GDP Multiplex Center Comes to Life
This year marks a defining milestone for the Global Development Project: the continued construction and near completion of the GDP Multiplex Center in Mombasa.
This center is more than a building. It is a long-term platform for hope.
Designed to serve as a permanent regional hub, the Multiplex Center will allow GDP to host numerous youth summits, women’s empowerment conferences, leadership training, and recovery programs all under one roof — reaching thousands each year in a sustainable, cost-effective way.
Once fully operational (April 2026), the center will include a 1,100-seat auditorium, classrooms, training spaces, career centers, and dormitories for both men and women. This means young people and women from rural and high-risk regions can safely attend multi-day programs that would otherwise be out of reach.
As one community leader shared during construction, “This center will change what is possible for our youth. It gives them a place to gather, learn, and believe again.”
📽️ We encourage you to watch the attached video, “GDP Multiplex,” to see this vision rising from the ground — brick by brick — because of your generosity.
🌍 Growth with Integrity — GDP on the African Stage
Over the past year, GDP’s work has gained increasing recognition across Kenya and East Africa — not because of branding or noise, but because of presence.
Government leaders, educators, and partner organizations continue to point to GDP as a trusted, consistent force — willing to go where others hesitate, and to stay long after the cameras leave.
Whether in the arid terrain of Maasai country, the crowded informal settlements of Nairobi, or the coastal regions of Mombasa, the approach remains the same:
Show up.
Listen first.
Work alongside the community.
Build for the long term and make an impact that changes not only lives, but communities.
This credibility allows us to serve more effectively — and to advocate for the most vulnerable with dignity and respect.
❤️ The Heart of the Work — Still Going to the Hard Places
Even as GDP grows, our mission remains firmly grounded in the places where help is hardest to find.
We continue to show up for children living without parents, without resources, and often without a voice — including some of the most vulnerable among them: orphaned children with special needs.
At the Project of Hope Children’s Home in Nairobi, GDP supports a Special Needs Center that provides food, therapy support, education, and daily care for children who are often overlooked or left behind. These are children who require patience, consistency, and compassion — and they receive it because you choose not to look away.
At the same time, our continued and growing success at St. Rita Evergreen Girls School stands as a powerful testament to what thoughtful, trauma-informed care can achieve. St. Rita is the first school of its kind in East Africa — a safe haven where vulnerable girls are allowed to remain with their children while both mother and child receive care, education, and healing.
More than 40 girls and their children are currently being supported, with a waiting list of over 2,000 seeking safety. One young mother shared, “This is the first place where I felt my child and I were both wanted.”
From special needs centers to girls’ sanctuaries, from rural schools to urban slums, GDP continues to go into the difficult, uncomfortable places — because that is where hope is needed most.
🔎 Stewardship with Purpose — Built to Last
Your generosity is not treated lightly.
Every dollar entrusted to GDP is directed with care, local insight, and long-term vision. We invest in solutions that reduce dependency, strengthen communities, and allow programs to grow without continually increasing costs.
The Multiplex Center is a clear example of this approach. By establishing a permanent hub in Mombasa, GDP will dramatically reduce recurring event expenses while increasing reach — allowing us to serve more people, more consistently, with the same faithful stewardship.
In 2025 alone, your support helped directly impact 8,780+ individuals across Kenya. In 2026, with this infrastructure in place, we are positioned to reach 10,500–12,000 people annually — without losing the relational, hands-on presence that defines our work.
As one donor shared, “I give to GDP because I know my support is being used wisely — and I can see the results.”
✉️ A Personal Word
As we begin 2026, I feel both humbled and hopeful.
Humbled by the trust you place in GDP.
Hopeful because of what lies ahead.
This year will bring growth. It will bring challenges. And it will bring moments that remind us why this work matters so deeply.
Thank you for walking with us — not just as donors, but as partners in a mission that reaches into the hardest places and refuses to look away.
The storm hasn’t disappeared.
But the light is stronger.
With gratitude and resolve,
Michael Wright
Co-Founder, Global Development Project
🌐 www.gdpkenya.org
📸 Instagram: @gdp_kenya
