Alumni Stories: How Warren Village Empowered Koi to Grow and Serve Others

When Koi Muturi arrived in the United States from Kenya with her two young daughters, ages 5 and 12, she was starting over in every sense.

She was in a new country and new culture, with no established career. But she knew what she needed: a safe home for her children, education that would translate to meaningful work in America, and financial stability so her family would never have to depend on anyone else.

Her mother, formerly a Warren Village resident, knew exactly where to direct her. In December 2017, just before Christmas, Koi and her daughters—Gabrielle and Gemini—moved into Warren Village.

The rest is history: Koi is now a health professional and working hard to build her own doula practice, Birth and Bloom Holistic Care. We talked to her about her journey from Warren Village to where she is today.

A Place to Call Home

“I felt so safe and protected and taken care of,” Koi recalls of those early days. “I felt welcome. I felt like someone was really helping me navigate through the newness of being in a new country.”

For her daughters, who had always shared their mother’s journey of uncertainty, Warren Village meant something they’d never had before: a place to call home. “We were so happy to have our own home,” Koi remembers. “They were happy to have a room – even if they were sharing, they were still happy to have it.”

That first Christmas at Warren Village set the tone for what was to come. When the girls opened their door to find gifts waiting for them, the moment was transformative. “It was just amazing for the girls to open the door and find all their Christmas gifts waiting. Santa had come. It was just amazing. I cannot even explain that feeling,” Koi says.

Building a Career, Achieving Dreams

Working closely with her family navigator, Koi created a vision board and began checking off goals one by one. Warren Village helped her enroll in phlebotomy school and covered her tuition. After completing her certification, she secured a position at UC Health, where she worked until July 2024.

All of that hard work added up to her proudest achievement. In 2023, while Koi was still living at Warren Village, she arranged to purchase her first home. It was a tangible symbol of the stability and independence she’d been working toward since arriving in America.

“Working with family navigators and setting our goals and going through those goals and achieving them,” Koi explains, was transformational, and it’s a skill she still relies on today. “The discipline of working with goals and getting through them came from Warren Village. Putting down your dreams.”

The skills went beyond practical goal-setting. “The empowerment to feel like you can actually achieve it, to have someone tell you, ‘Oh, that’s your goals and your dreams and your concerns are not out of reach. It’s actually something that you can achieve,'” Koi reflects. She also learned to advocate for herself, and to speak up when expectations weren’t being met and ask what could be done.

A Circle of Giving Back

For Koi, single parenthood had been a struggle. Each of her two daughters required a C-section, and she recalls the loneliness and isolation she felt as she tried to heal alone after such a difficult experience. It was just one challenge among many, as she soon would raise her daughters on her own.

After these struggles, Warren Village offered something she hadn’t experienced: community support. There were people to help take her children to school, daycare downstairs where Gemini could spend the day, library books delivered to their door, and a food pantry ensuring they never went hungry.

Inspired by that community support and informed by her own experiences, Koi wanted to give back. Koi recently got certified as a doula and started Birth and Bloom Holistic Care, her own practice. Koi is working to bring that same support to other mothers—particularly women at Warren Village who may be navigating pregnancy and birth alone, just as she once did.

“Going through labor after labor, having C-sections and after that, even going home from the hospital stay and still being by myself was a really difficult time,” she shares. “I would have really loved if someone was there with me, because it would have made so much difference in my life, in our lives.”

She’s in the process of scheduling enrichment classes at Warren Village to teach residents about doula services—support that many don’t even know exists. “I feel like it’s something that everybody should know about, but very still, very few people know that they can access this service and get some help.”

The spirit of giving back extends to her daughters as well. Gabrielle, now 17 and studying environmental engineering at Colorado State University, volunteers with Warren Village’s Kids Club, working with children whose families are walking the same path she once traveled.

“I want to teach them to never forget where we came from,” Koi says of her daughters, “and those people that have worked with us through this journey.”

An Investment in the Future

When asked what she would tell potential donors about Warren Village’s impact, Koi said: “It’s a very good investment. It’s something that you can watch grow. You’re not just giving money—you’re actually supporting someone’s life and affecting it positively and giving them hope in a future.”

She added: “An example is me and Gabby. [Donors] do not just invest in me. They invested in the future of this country.”

Today, Koi lives in the home she purchased while at Warren Village, continues her healthcare career, and is building her doula practice. Her daughters are thriving—one in college, one in fifth grade—and both understand the value of supporting others who are just beginning their journey.