Aga Khan Foundation helps vulnerable community members start businesses

Jay, not his real name, did not believe Sh500 could help him start a business venture in Mombasa.

This is partly because he was a drug and substance abuse addict and extricating himself from the vice has been a struggle.

He was however lucky to have been identified by Mewa, an organisation dealing with the rehabilitation of his ilk, and was trained on financial literacy and social skills while being reintegrated into society gradually.

Armed with new skills set, he set out to buy hijabs at Markiti and started selling them to his family members, including his sisters and aunts, who are now gradually accepting him back.

From buying five pieces of hijabs to now buying 24 and selling them not only to family members but also to an expanded clientele, Jay can now call himself a businessman with a supportive family to boot.

Sarah, also not her real name, wanted a capital of Sh10,000 to start a business.

This was until she met John Kamau Juma of Family Aid Initiative Response (FAIR) in Nakuru county.

Kamau trained Sarah and 30 others on financial literacy in a programme targeting vulnerable households in Nakuru West subcounty who had been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Sarah was given Sh500 with which she bought 2kg of groundnuts.

She roasted and sold them, making Sh1,050.

“With a capital of only Sh500, she was able to make a profit of Sh550. This was a person who had been living with her in-laws for three months before the project started,” Kamau said.

“With Sh550 in a day, in a week you can make more and in a month even more.”

Sarah was able to pay her rent and stop living with her in-laws.

“As we speak today, she has a very comfortable life. She is a dancer and has been able to pursue her passion," Kamau said.

With the stress reduced, she has been able to get performance contracts and earn both from groundnuts and dancing.

Kamau said the project has made people start believing that they can do it no matter how small they start.

Jay and Sarah are just two of more than 20,000 beneficiaries of a Covid-19 response and intervention programme initiated by the Aga Khan Foundation.

Funded by the European Union, the programme, sponsored to the tune of Sh56 million, was initiated during Covid-19 to respond to the needs that arose from the pandemic, according to AKF’s Stellamaris Mumbua.

Mumbua said it was implemented through Civil Society Organisations in six counties in Kenya.

The counties are Mombasa, Kwale, Kilifi and Lamu counties on the Coast, and Kisii and Nakuru counties in the Western part of Kenya.

The Sh56 million was disbursed to 12 CSOs whose mandate was to identify needs in the community, work closely with their networks and come up with relevant interventions.

The programme started in September 2022.

The areas of intervention included mental health, sexual and gender-based violence, social skills, financial literacy, healthcare, psychosocial support, among others.

“One of our partners in Nakuru trained community members on farming technologies and they have been doing an amazing job to ensure they can provide food to their families and immediate members,” Mumbua said.

“Community members who had experienced SGBV had started embracing themselves. Some of them felt like outcasts but have now been reintegrated back into their families. There has been a lot of reconciliation and those cases have gone down.”

Mewa’s Mariam Musa said they worked in Kisauni and Nyali subcounties, with 200 young males and 200 young females who were abusing drugs.

“We were dealing with people who were using drugs but specifically we were looking at mental health as a component that was very strong. We were supporting these people to be in touch with themselves first of all,” Musa said.

They trained 50 of them on economic empowerment and livelihood strategy for them to be able to support themselves, apart from having mentorship programmes.

These, including Jay, were given capital to start businesses that they proposed.

“We intend to continue mentoring them because we need to ensure that they proceed with whatever they have done,” Musa said.

Aga Khan Foundation’s regional technical adviser for civil society Cynthia Adhiambo said the extensive network, knowledge and capacity in civil society.

“For us, it is very important to ensure that civil societies have the capacity and resources to engage communities beneficially,” Adhiambo said.

She said the foundation has been happy to provide grants to the CSOs, who have been at the forefront in addressing challenges brought about by Covid.

Adhiambo said the same project was undertaken in Uganda and Tanzania.

The foundation is looking to provide long-term support for CSOs in various ways, including follow-up support, training and capacity building.