Lilly Richards did not start KWITU for titles or name recognition.
She started it because she saw a real need.
And thanks to her initiative, fifteen thousand women across the United States, and a small but expanding community in Canada, now have somewhere to turn when life in a new country gets complicated.
This network exists because Lilly Richards saw what happened when it didn’t.
She watched immigrants navigate crises alone.
Women like her, who had left their home countries to build new lives, were starting over in silence, figuring out systems that worked nothing like the ones they knew, often only learning critical information too late.
In 2015, she started Kenyan Women in the United States (KWITU), and it has become one of the largest Kenyan diaspora communities in the country.
But before we get into how she built this organization, let me introduce you to the woman who refused to let fear stop her.
Before KWITU
When Lilly Richards’ father passed away in 2000, she was barely out of her teens. The firstborn child in a Kenyan family of four, Lilly was suddenly thrust into a role she was not prepared for.
With her father gone, her mother became the dad, and Lilly had to fill in her mom’s shoes. By her mid-20s, she was in the US trying to build a new life while financially supporting her family back in Kenya.
She had arrived in the United States unprepared for how disorienting daily life would be.
Basic tasks required learning from scratch. Lilly remembers buying coffee just to get change, then asking strangers which coin worked on a payphone. At the same time, she was dealing with illness, allergies, and a body adjusting to a new environment. Most of what she learned, she learned the hard way.
Looking for work added another layer of difficulty.
While staying with a host, Lilly shared her plan to apply for a job at PNC Bank. The response was immediate and discouraging. She was told she had not been in the country long enough and that her accent was too thick for a bank role.
Lilly went for the interview anyway.
Out of sixteen applicants, only three were hired, and she was one of them.
At the time, Lilly was already working a care job and balancing employment while still pursuing her degree.
At night, when everyone else was asleep, she would leave the house and drive on the highway, teaching herself how to navigate roads that worked nothing like the ones she knew back in Kenya.
Persistence, she says, became a pattern no one could interrupt.
The Absence That Sparked KWITU
Lilly recalls a moment that changed how she understood community in the diaspora.
A Kenyan man who worked as a security guard at Lilly’s care job was found dead while on duty. The colleague who arrived to relieve him discovered him seated at his post, unresponsive. Apparently, the cause of death was fatigue, and it didn’t help that the man lacked a support system around him.
People struggled to figure out the next steps, how they would raise money, and where to turn for help. They went from church to church trying to piece together support. It was the early 2000s, and there were very few Kenyan communities organized enough to respond in moments like that.
At the same time, Lilly was trying to navigate other systems on her own, including taxes and financial responsibilities that came with living and working in the US.
The pattern was becoming impossible to ignore.
People were learning critical things too late, in isolation, and often in crisis.
Current online spaces, too, could not fill the gap. Lilly joined existing Facebook groups but found them disconnected from the realities of life in the US. The conversations felt distant, and in many cases, irrelevant.
It was this gap and desire for community, and answers that made Lilly begin to think about a space designed exclusively for Kenyan women living in the US.
She settled on building a defined community where Kenyan women, regardless of tribe, would receive support, connection, and empowerment.
When Lilly decided to act on the idea, the resistance came quickly.
She says everyone who knew her told her not to do it.
Friends warned her against starting a community like that. They told her it would destroy her. Some said Kenyan women would kill her spirit. The message was the same: “Do not go there.”
She asked her close friends to start with her, and every one of them said no.
In fact, the pioneer admins who helped her launch the group were not part of her inner circle, but strangers she met online.
And so, in 2015, Kenya Women in the United States (KWITU) was born despite the many objections.
“Fear is one thing I will never subscribe to. I know the moment you are afraid, you can’t do anything. Fear makes you a slave to something or someone.”– Lilly Richards, Founder, KWITU.
Leading 15,000 Women Without Losing the Mission
By the time KWITU grew into a community of more than 15,000 women, Lilly was already clear about one thing.
Leadership did not mean absorbing every idea that came her way. It meant guarding the purpose.
She describes herself first as the vision carrier. That role, she explains, is her biggest responsibility.
“I’m very, very aware that I’m the vision carrier,” she says. “Nobody has that vision. I do have it.”
As a result, KWITU’s focus has stayed narrow and intentional. Lilly knew that drifting even slightly would weaken the organization’s foundation.
“The one thing that starts killing a group even before it starts is when you have a purpose, and then you move away from the purpose, even just a little bit.”
To keep momentum within the organization, Lilly made sure to be deliberate about how power showed up, especially among women who already carried full lives and responsibilities.
“I’m not doing this because I’m better than you,” she says. “You’re probably way better than me. I’m doing this because no one is doing it. And we need it.”
That mindset influenced everything, from how admins interacted with members to how decisions were made. For Lilly, leading thousands did not mean control. It meant service, consistency, and the willingness to make hard calls when needed, then stand by them.
“Sometimes I go too far with some of the decisions I make,” she tells me. “And to be honest, they’re decisions that nobody else can make except me. I’m not afraid to make them. I’ll make them, and if it turns out otherwise, then I’ll learn from them. But most of the time, they turn out great.”
Lessons From a Decade of Leading
After a decade of creating a community of over 15,000 women, Lilly is clear about what it takes to keep something alive. These are the lessons she learned the hard way and would tell any woman starting where she was ten years ago.
First: Do not give up.
“No matter what, because trust me, most of what you’ll encounter is trying to get you off of that path,” she says. “You’ll realize sometimes you want to give up so badly, but you have to stay focused.”
Second: You will lose friends.
This part scares people. It scared Lilly, too. “For you to succeed in what you’re doing, you lose so many friends. And it’s normal, because some of these friends, they will never understand your vision.”
The people at the table with you will probably be people you haven’t met yet; people you’re meeting because of what you’re building. You’ll create a network of supporters. Your old friends? You might end up leaving them back there.
“I know it’s terrifying, because when it was happening to me, it was so scary,” she admits. “But I realized it’s very lonely at the top, so I didn’t mind it. I was okay with it.”
Third: You will face opposition, judgment, and criticism.
“If you’re out there shaking up things, changing the game, it will happen,” Lilly says. “There are just people who don’t like to see people succeeding, or doing something great, or something they couldn’t do, now somebody’s doing. It annoys them.”
People will make up stories. They will fabricate entire narratives about your life and tell them with such confidence that even you might start to doubt yourself. Lilly knows this because it happened to her on multiple occasions.
“I said to myself, if I know myself, then maybe I shouldn’t listen to what somebody’s trying to label me as. Nobody should tell me who I am. Nobody.”
Her advice is to shut your ears to the naysayers.
“As long as people are talking, and you know very well it’s not true, just keep forging ahead. And even if they’re saying, and it’s true, and you know you didn’t do anything wrong, you just keep going.”
To the Woman Whose Life Has Fallen Apart
Lilly lost her mother recently, and it was a hard blow because her mum was the one person she trusted most.
The grief of losing someone so dear is still fresh, and so Lilly knows something about life falling apart.
“Sometimes you can look at something, and you think it’s the end, but in fact, it’s the beginning,” she says. “It’s how you look at it.”
She’s watched women stare at divorce like their life is over. She’s also watched women see it as the moment their life finally starts. A new beginning. A chance to do it again, but this time informed, this time better.
“If you know you’re somewhere and you’ve hit rock bottom, the only way to get out of it is to rise. Where else are you going to go?”
She knows it feels like drowning. She knows it feels impossible. But you fight your way out anyway.
The other option is giving up. And what comes out of that?
“You cannot give up. What are you gonna tell your children one day? Or what are you gonna tell the people who look up to you?”
When she has hit rock bottom, Lilly thinks about the women watching her. “I know there’s a woman somewhere who, if I gave up, it would have totally broken her.”
So she doesn’t let anyone break her.
“You have to find your way out, Mama. There’s always gonna be a way out. And if you feel like there’s no way out, maybe reach out to somebody. Reach out to me, or anyone. Figure it out. Because there’s always gonna be a way.”
About Lilly Richards
Lilly Richards founded Kenyan Women in the United States (KWITU) in 2015 after watching too many immigrants navigate crises alone. What started as a response to gaps in support has grown into a community of over 15,000 Kenyan women spread across the US and Canada. Lilly has grown very passionate about Diaspora issues and, since 2019, has been encouraging and helping women invest back home. Through her efforts, over 3,000 KWITU families have bought land in Kenya. She has also connected Diaspora women with investment opportunities in healthcare, IT, and farming.
She holds a degree in finance and a Master’s in Public Administration (MPA) in government and policy, and currently works in the financial industry. Lilly runs several businesses, including Lavish By Lilly, Lavish By Lilly Kenya, Premium Errands Global, and Lilly Richards Consulting.
Outside of her work, she is a wife and mum to one daughter.
