About life in the slums

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I was born and raised in Kaptembwa, a very big slum in Nakuru, Kenya. Large families often live in a tiny three by three meter room. A kitchen, a sitting room, a bed — everything is in that one single room. Children don’t have a place to play, adults lack infrastructure. People don't pay their electrical bills, and steal cables instead. Parents need to feed children, but have no job opportunities. That’s why a lot of them end up committing crime or turn to prostitution.

When you live in the slums, it’s not safe to leave your house. For example, many houses in the slums tend to share one toilet. When women go to the toilet at night, they can easily become victims of rape.

Girls from the slums drop out of school early. Oftentimes, their parents are not able to support them beyond the 8th grade. At the same time, these girls see their mothers suffering. That's why most of them turn to prostitution to earn money even though they’re still minors.

People feel sorry for me when they learn that I was raised in the slums. But I've never regretted it. I have seven siblings, so you can imagine how big our family was. My parents came from poverty, they didn't have anything. But they also didn’t want to see their children suffer. So they really wanted to break the cycle of poverty and worked very hard to make sure that their children would have a chance to get out of the slums in the future.

I saw my parents doing all sorts of jobs. They had no choice. They taught me the value of earning honest money, and later I did lots of gigs myself to pay for my education.

Due to my experience as a child, I clearly see problems that women from the slums face. My most memorable job before Gwiji was a project called Ajiri Dada, established by Amurt Health Care Center. We went to the slums, and recruited women to work as nurses for the elderly. We taught them how to do household chores and got them jobs in the suburbs. After the funding ran out, I felt that these women were let down once again. That's when the idea of creating Gwiji first came to me. From that moment on, I knew that I wanted to continue helping these women, but in a more sustainable way.

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About inequality and diversity

There are two groups of women in Kenya who are treated very differently by society. On the one hand, there are educated women who have access to work in large corporations, universities, engineering and entrepreneurship. It's easy to find real cases of women's empowerment in these sectors. But on the other hand, if you look at the slums, you see women who have been forgotten.

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Women from the slums tend to have fewer job opportunities than men. Men rarely have to take care of children, so they have enough time and energy for full-time work. They can become salesmen, plumbers, carpenters or electricians. Women, on the other hand, are usually limited to caregiving. They may want to become carpenters, but no one is willing to choose them over men. So, the only option for them is casual cleaning. It allows them to earn money by working just a few hours per day, and come back home. Also, this job doesn’t require any specific skills or education.

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Given the opportunity, one woman can change a whole community. We started helping women earn money, because we realized that it benefits society.

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About dreams for the future and the path for freedom

The next step after creating the opportunity for women to provide for their families is to educate them. Now we’re starting to teach women how to save funds and become financially independent. We also tell them about the benefits they can have for their children. Finally, we teach them how to save their surplus, become entrepreneurs and open small kiosks, where they can sell fruits and vegetables, for example. We explain that if they don't have any cleaning jobs on certain days, they can earn money from their own kiosk. As soon as they get an order, they can ask someone to fill in for them. This strategy helps diversify your income and earn more consistently.

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In the future, we want to become a talent powerhouse, not just for women. There are so many groups in Kenya that have been forgotten. I mean all the plumbers, electricians, and other blue-collar workers who need to support their families. We don't have the capacity right now to build commercial structures for all of them. But afterwards, we’re going to help not just women, but also men from the slums to find small gigs.

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If I hadn't grown up in the slums, I don't think I would be where I am now. I probably would have continued my career as an architect. But I believe that my experiences have led me to this point. These women are close to my heart. I know how much they need to be empowered. By 2025, we want to empower at least 10,000 women.

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Gwiji has become my baby. My whole life is now in this business. I'm crazy about changing the narrative that oppresses people living in the slums. I'm so passionate about it that I often forget about other aspects of my life. Sometimes I wonder if I want to have a family of my own. And to be honest, I'm not sure I'm ready to bring children into this world. Especially when I see how the women we work with are struggling to survive. Maybe in 2025, after we've empowered 10,000 women and the situation has changed, I'll start paying more attention to my personal life.

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