Polish Aid 2020: support for young entrepreneurs from Kisumu in Kenya
24.11.2020
This year under its Small Grants programme, the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Nairobi has supported an initiative entitled "Shine with SOMO AFRICA – supporting entrepreneurship among young people from low-income and disadvantaged communities in Kisumu County", under which we allocated EUR 25,000 to co-finance business trainings and financial grants for several young prospective entrepreneurs from Kisumu's informal settlements.
During their monitoring visit in Kisumu on November 21, 2020, Ambassador Jacek Bazański and Attaché Iwona Lula took part in the official ceremony marking the end of the 12-week-long business training, which was successfully completed by 16 aspiring entrepreneurs. Those who presented the best business plans before the evaluation committee, which also included the Polish Ambassador, will receive grants, co-financed by Polish Aid, which will allow them to open their own businesses and succesfully enter the Kenyan market.
SOMO Africa, a local organization co-implementing this project together with the Embassy, has been operating since 2014 among low-income communities in disadvantaged areas (slums, Kenyan province, persons with disabilities), promoting entrepreneurship and self-sufficiency among them. The main target group of SOMO are young people to whom the organization - instead of emergency humanitarian aid - offers trainings in the field of entrepreneurship and teaches them on how to run their own businesses, Those most determined, with the best ideas, subsequently receive financial grants allowing them to open their own businesses; they are also advised and supported in their first steps on the market. Thanks to the support received, and also due to the fact that the businesses supported within this project respond to the problems of everyday life of average Kenyans, these young people themselves become leaders of change in their communities.
The project is carried out in Kisumu - Kenya's third largest city with 1.3 million inhabitants. Over 60% of its population live in overcrowded, informal settlements or slums, where basic services are scarce and unemployment rate is high.
This is the second Small Grant implemented by the Embassy in cooperation with SOMO Africa. In 2018, as part of a similar initiative, we supported the participation of 10 young people from Kibera - Nairobi informal settlements in business trainings. Ultimately, 6 of them, with our financial help, set up companies that are currently successfully developing, providing employment to additional people.
We encourage you to read the article in The Standard newspaper on the above-mentioned project.
