Transforming Futures: Women-Owned Businesses Tackle Generational Poverty in Kenya
Business for Better Society collaborates with the Kenyan non-profit Activate Action to enhance women’s involvement in their local economies as business owners. Our initiative focuses on empowering women in rural Kenya, helping them escape poverty through a comprehensive entrepreneurship training and coaching program. By fostering entrepreneurship, we aim to stimulate economic growth, promote self-sufficiency, and address significant development challenges faced by women. This project specifically targets the unique needs of women at the base of the economic pyramid, enabling them to establish sustainable business ventures that are deeply rooted in their local economies, thus ensuring a reliable income stream for the future.
Objectives of Our Incubator Project
The incubator is tailored to meet the specific needs of women, focusing on those at the base of the economic pyramid. We achieve this by:
- Igniting entrepreneurial potential among participants.
- Instilling confidence and empowering women to become agents of change in their communities.
- Supporting sustainable business ventures that provide consistent income.
- Offering start-up grants to help initiate their business projects.
- Providing ongoing coaching to guide new business owners.
Impact Achieved So Far
To date, our project has successfully established 120 women-owned businesses across the Homa Bay region, alongside one women’s group. Utilising the Street Business School’s Impact Tracker, we are proud to report a 120% increase in household income for our business owners. Notably, these women are prioritising spending on healthcare and their children’s education.
Business for Better Society was also honoured in 2023 as one of ten recipients of the prestigious Catalyst Scale-Up Grant from the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (The RSA) for this incubator project. This grant aims to catalyse successful projects poised for growth and validates our efforts to address community-specific needs while driving social change.
Resilience in Challenging Times
In 2024, women from our incubator in the Nyalkinyi estate faced devastating floods that destroyed many businesses, particularly those engaged in small-scale farming. In response, these women chose to unite, pooling their resources and knowledge to rebuild what they had lost.
Today, the Nyalkinyi women are officially registered as a women’s group and have embarked on several promising ventures, including vegetable farming, fish selling, and poultry keeping. Through collective savings efforts, they have acquired 34 plastic chairs that they rent out for additional income and use to support their table banking initiative.
The table banking initiative allows group members to pool savings and access loans from a shared fund, fostering mutual support for economic ventures and better household management.
The group has identified further needs to expand their businesses: farmers require a water pump; fish sellers need a cooling and storage facility; and poultry farmers seek assistance in building proper housing for their birds – an offer already supported by a generous community member providing land.
These women exemplify resilience in adversity, inspiring others as their group has grown from the original participants to now include 45 members.
Capacity Building Using the Street Business School Model (SBS)
Activate Action is trained and certified to deliver the Street Business School program, which is the basis of the skill development for the participants.
SBS empowers women to become thriving entrepreneurs, lifting themselves and their families to a more vibrant future. Their proven curriculum teaches women living in poverty the tools they need to successfully start and grow microbusinesses.
The program is designed for localisation and for those who may not have a significant formal education, plus it includes critical confidence building components. SBS teaches women to start, manage and grow self-sustaining microbusinesses, starting small without requiring loads or significant start-up capital. The SBS model is about giving confidence and business skills, plus on-going coaching support.
The SBS model is a proven and trusted methodology for creating microbusinesses:
- 211% Increase in Income Two Years After Graduation (SBS Uganda) from $1.35 to $4.19
- 80%-89% Own One Business One Year After Completing the SBS Program
- 46%-56% Own Two or More Business One Year After Completing the SBS Program
- Program Graduates Measure High on Their Perception of Their Ability to Persevere, Cope with Setbacks and Improve Over Time.
SBS data sources include a 3-year randomized control trial (RCT), evaluations by external firms, and a robust data collection system tracking the progress of their NGO partners (like Activate Action) and their beneficiaries.
FYI, Street Business School official website can be viewed by clicking here.
Paying It Forward
Graduates from the incubator will play an important future role by acting as mentors to new cohorts. They’ll provide valuable support based on their experiences and share key learning’s during and after participation on the incubator.
The broader goal is to build a network of women that can support each other as they build their businesses.
Your donation will go directly to our incubator costs and the start-up grants.
We’re delighted to introduce you to some of the 120 businesses and the official women’s group that BBS has helped launched in 2022 and 2023.
