Jobs for Youth in Urban Slums

To Our Lively Global Givers,

We’d like to share some of our accomplishments with you.

Since our launch last year, 27 youth have sold over solar lamps and fuel-efficient cook stoves to over 1,400 families in Nairobi slum communities. Through their creativity and resilience, our youth have generated over $15,000 in sales revenue, which has been reinvested in expanding our impact. This month, we’re hiring 10 more youth. Next month, we’ll hire more. Thank you for helping us give youth rich with potential an opportunity – a job with dignity.

Mercy, one of our youths who just moved on to pursue her education, left this unsolicited (and unedited) post on our Facebook page about her work with our sales force, iSmart Kenya:

“ismart kenya is the best place any youth can enjoy being.when i joined livelyhoods i didn,t knew il reach this far.i specifically recognized tania and maria springer for coming up with this idea.i also appreciate anyone who contributed in raising this project.personally i benefited mentally,socially being part of ismart.i never regret at one point”

Additionally, here are some of our other achievements:

-With the help of former Procter & Gamble employee, we’re overhauling our training and sales curriculum.

- Tania Laden, our Director of Operations, and iSmart Kenya was given an award from Paradigm Project for being an excellent distributor of fuel-efficient cook stoves.

-Maria Springer, our Executive Director, was selected as a Cordes Fellow, which gives promising social entrepreneurs a scholarship to attend the Opportunity Collaboration in Mexico

-We were selected as one of 300 semifinalists from a pool of 3,508 for Echoing Green, an organization that invests $90,000 in bold social entrepreneurs and organizations.