Kenya’s unemployed youth find fresh hope in the form of LivelyHoods | Source/complete article: Poverty Matters/The Guardian, Jan 5, 2014 |
A social enterprise project that trains young people to sell goods of benefit to local communities in the slums of Nairobi is thriving
Excerpts: In 2010, Tania Laden and Maria Springer founded LivelyHoods, a social enterprise project designed to create work for young people in the urban slums of Kenya. In the two and a half years since, an initiative born of the willingness of two American twenty somethings to listen to the needs of Kenya’s youth, and tailor their methods accordingly, has shown that – with invention and open-mindedness – it is not impossible to forge economic opportunities for a generation faced by massive unemployment.
The LivelyHoods project, which began in Kawangware, a densely populated urban slum about nine miles (15km) from Nairobi, is designed to create employment opportunities by training young people to sell products tailored to the needs of their communities. Cornerstones of the scheme’s iSmart brand include fuel-efficient cookstoves, of which 3,233 have been sold so far, as well as solar lamps and reusable sanitary products for women. All the products are vetted for their suitability, first by the LivelyHoods sales team and then by potential customers.
On completing their training, sales agents are invited to select a daily consignment of goods worth $75 (£50) from one of the project’s two shops. They earn up to 20% commission on everything they sell, and are free to return or replenish stock as they see fit. So far, the scheme has provided training for 227 young people, 84 of whom have been given full-time jobs. In 2014, Springer and Laden hope to double the number of trainees.
