Family Economic Empowerment in the Kenyan Slums

We want to thank all our donors for their amazing support for the Macheo Empowerment Program. Giving a person the tools to help themselves, is always a more sustainable model of aid, than feeding them for a day. Your funding this quarter has helped a few families  become self sufficient, feed their children and provide school supplies for children to attend school. 

With many thanks for your kind consideration.

Anne Thompson

From the field.....by Seth Mwangi

Mutheu is twenty eight years old and provides care to seven children (four of her own & three of her late brother's). Her life began to improve when she started a small business with the support of Macheo through their household economic strengthening intervention. Before her involvement with Macheo, Mutheu had no stable income and relied on casual labour. The jobs were hardly coming in and she was in constant debt to several lenders. Her children would miss school and sometimes go hungry for a day. She was identified by our social worker, when the teacher of the school that Mutheu’s children go to, noticed their absense.  It was reported that the child had not gone to school for days. A home follow up was made and it was established that the household was very needy. One child was referred to our health program for treatment and all the other children were placed in our feeding intervention program at school. Mutheu took advantage of Macheo’s supportive economic improvement seminars and quickly absorbed basic principles of small business practices, as well as skills to improve her family’s food security, nutrition, and hygiene. She was also given information on the importance of legal documents for her children; birth certificate and coverage from the National Hospital Insurance Fund. After months of constant assessment by our economic strengthening officer, Macheo provided Mutheu with a start-up capital and she started a green grocer,      “I can’t believe myself today; I really came from far". There are times when I would eat one meal a day and my children could not go to good school because of missing basic school items, but now I feel that I can support my family and feel more confident about our future.” A natural entrepreneur, Mutheu took full advantage of Macheo’s support for small business development and is now running her business based in her community, that have substantially improved her income and capacity to support her family’s basic needs. She was recently taught on how to grow vegetables on a sack so that he can supplement what she buys from the market. “As a result of Macheo’s support, I have real confidence about the future for my family,” says Mutheu. “I also see that other caregivers look up to me now and see that it is possible to improve family income. This benefits all of our children.” says Mutheu. Through our HES intervention, Macheo helps families like Mutheu’s improve their financial status through income generating activities by building practical skills, entrepreneurship, record keeping, financial skills, building linkages to local markets and helping them measure and monitor the progress of their businesses.