Editor’s Note: Dr. Matthew Dickson, founder and CEO of Eggpreneur and one of our Global Partners, gave us a year-end update on some new and existing projects. We’ve selected two stories to share with you. Thanks to your financial support, we can partner with Eggpreneur to alleviate poverty in rural Kenya and beyond.
By Dr. Matthew Dickson
Eggpreneur trains and engages women groups, youths, self-help groups, faith-based and community-based organizations by equipping them with knowledge, skills, and partnerships for sustainable Farm Enterprises. This approach aims to use Farm-Microenterprises (Poultry, Piggery, Rabbitry and Beekeeping) techniques to tackle poverty, create jobs and increasing household income for women and smallholder farmers in rural communities. In the year 2022, Eggpreneur embarked on a number of empowerment projects in Kenya to empower rural communities through sustainable Farm enterprises. This is meant to provide a feasible food source for their families and also by providing technical, advisory support as well as market linkage through investors. This helps improve their economic conditions by enabling them to launch their own businesses.
Below are some of the successfully launched projects:
- Malindi Poultry Project
- Njiru Widows Poultry Project
- Sikhona Rescue Centre
- Watamu Poultry Project
- Hidden Treasure Group
Creating Jobs and Providing Opportunities for Women
Sikhona is a gender-based violence rescue center where women and children at risk are provided food, shelter, healthcare, legal representation and education. Children are nurtured and empowered through primary school while at-risk women are employed and educated through poultry farming and organic agriculture. Eggpreneur worked with Sikhona Rescue Centre, Kitengela, which is in the outskirts of Nairobi, to provide poultry training for their members. Sikhona Group They underwent an intensive training which tackled all things poultry keeping and by the end of the training, all the trainees could come up with a comprehensive budget, proposal, and an execution plan . The rescue center has already established a chicken coop and have already started with 100 chicks. They are planning aiming to grow it to commercial levels of 1000 chicks. The poultry training was a life changing skill offered to the rescued women as they could establish businesses of their own using the knowledge they had acquired once reintegrated to their communities or families.
Njiru Widows Poultry Project
Widows face a multitude of challenges, ranging from economic insecurity and social isolation to discrimination and abuse. Oftentimes they lack access to education or job opportunities, or may face discrimination in the workplace. It is in this light our organization through the Eggpreneur project, sought to offer skills and resources enabling them to provide their families with a reliable food source to overcome poverty.
Eggpreneur embarked on an empowerment project that trained a group of widows between the ages of 28-65 years from Njiru location, in the outskirts of Nairobi City. The project intended on imparting the widows with business skills and training in poultry farming as a means to support their children.
Using the Eggpreneur Co-op Enterprise model, the widows have formed the Njiru Co-op enterprise to run their individual micro-poultry but meet monthly for members meetings, peerto-peer learning, and aggregate their produce and assess how their businesses are fairing. To ensure that the training had the most impact, the curriculum was structured in the most comprehensive approach possible with check ups and support from Eggpreneur to ensure the women succeed in their businesses.
Impact at a Glance
1.4k Micro-Entrepreneurs Trained
20+ Partner Organizations
10k+ Lives Impacted
4+ Countries with Eggpreneur Partners
For more information, please visit eggpreneur.com
