Kenya Day Five: Entrepreneurialism in the Kibera Slum

Woman Entrepreneur Kibera Africa

This young mother is a talented seamstress running her own business thanks to a sewing machine donated by Every Girl Counts.

Kibera Slum Kenya Sewing Shop Collage

Imagine for a few seconds that you are a small business owner. And a woman. And your home, and business, happen to be in Africa’s largest slum.

Already you are starting up in an environment where there are monumental odds stacked against you. But you don’t let that stop you. You strive to make life better for your family. You work hard. You don’t have an elaborate business plan or money for advertising. You do have talent and a desire to rise above the odds.

This is your storefront.

Sewing Shop Kibera

You are proud of it because it may not seem like much to the outside world, but it is everything. It is a buoy of hope amidst a sea of seemingly impossible poverty.

This is a glimpse of life and how it can be better. This is hope for your daughter and your sister’s daughters and every single girl in your community who looks up to you and sees you as a role model.

Little Girl Kibera Sewing Shop

I’ve been honored and humbled to share images and stories on my blog the past few weeks from my recent trip to Nairobi, Kenya, with Every Girl Counts, a Franklin, Tennessee, based non-profit empowering girls from impoverished countries through education.

 

Empowering Women Quote

7 comments

  1. lynn says:

    How wonderful to see the spirit of Hope rise in what we see as impoverished places. Thank you for sharing your trip with us.

  2. Mary Dailey says:

    I love that these ladies are given an opportunity to help provide for their families. I wish them well!

  3. Dorothy Teel says:

    Does make us thankful for what we have and the preserverence of human nature and persistance of survival, wonderful information thank you.

  4. Christina Anne says:

    Amazing! What a wonderful cause! I also love her sewing maching:)
    THanks for sharing! anne

  5. fun says:

    I leave a response each time I appreciate a article on a website or if I
    have something to valuable to contribute to the discussion.

    It’s triggered by the fire communicated in the post I read.
    And after this post Kenya Day Five: Entrepreneurial Spirits Still Rise
    in the Midst of a Heavy World – Blonde Mom Blog. I was actually moved enough to drop a commenta
    response 😉 I actually do have a couple of questions for you if you don’t mind.
    Is it only me or do some of these responses come across like left by brain
    dead people? 😛 And, if you are posting at additional social sites, I would like to follow anything fresh you have to post.
    Would you list the complete urls of your social sites
    like your twitter feed, Facebook page or linkedin profile?

  6. Rational Combi Oven says:

    I’ve been surfing on-line more than three hours nowadays,
    but I never discovered any attention-grabbing article like yours.
    It is beautiful worth sufficient for me. Personally, if all web owners and
    bloggers made excellent content as you did, the internet will likely be
    much more useful than ever before.

Leave a Reply