SDG 1 · No Poverty
Our work
- Boosting Income Opportunities
Slum Social Business Growth Program
In slum regions, many families cannot earn a steady income. A lack of business skills, tools, and support makes it hard for them to start, grow, and strengthen a business that earns a steady income.
Over 9 out of 10 is the share of households in Mombasa slum regions without a steady income.
Through Civicom Aid’s Slum Social Business Growth Programme, social entrepreneurs and their employees run and manage social businesses that earn them a steady income. They focus on three pillars.
Pillar 1: Business Start-Up
Practices that turn an idea into a working business.
Pillar 2: Business Growth
Practices that help a business grow and expand, so it can create jobs.
Pillar 3: Business Resilience
Practices that strengthen a business, secure financing, and prepare it for climate shocks.
Our Slum Programmes
In all three slum regions, we coach social entrepreneurs. We provide production assets. We provide continuous support.
Moroto Slum Social Business Growth Program
Building stronger businesses and brighter futures
- Who we support: Women and young people in Moroto who run or want to start a small business.
- How we help: Business coaching, business capital, and ongoing support.
- What participants learn: Business planning, managing resources, and finding ways to grow.
- What we aim for: More income for families, more local jobs, and support for children’s education.
Bangladesh Slum Social Business Growth Program
Growing local enterprise and strengthening livelihoods
- Who we support: Women and young people in Bangladesh who run or want to start a small business.
- How we help: Business coaching, business capital, and ongoing support.
- What participants learn: Business planning, managing resources, and customer service.
- What we aim for: More income for families, more local jobs, and a more secure future.
Likoni 203 Slum Social Business Growth Program
Empowering entrepreneurs and expanding opportunities
- Who we support: Women and young people in Likoni 203 who run or want to start a small business.
- How we help: Business coaching, business capital, and ongoing support.
- What participants learn: Managing a business, serving customers, finding markets, and planning for growth.
- What we aim for: More income for families, more local jobs, and a more secure future.
Current Projects Seeking Grants
152+ social businesses ready to grow
These business owners completed coaching. Now they need capital and steady support to grow. Please contact us for more details and more vetted social businesses.
Business: Pure Green Grocery
Sector: Grocery · Retail
Needs: A fresh-produce business serving local homes. It needs capital for more stock and better storage.
Business:Kosi Enterprise
Sector: Food · Service
Needs: A food business with real growth potential. It needs equipment and working capital to serve more customers, reliably.
Business: Danilux Enterprises
Sector: Soap Production
Needs: A small soap production business. It needs workspace upgrades and equipments to grow output and create new jobs.
Business: Dimos Tailors
Sector:Tailoring · Fashion
Needs: A tailoring business run by skilled hands. It needs better sewing equipment and steady access to materials to keep up with demand.
Business: Zuma Grocery
Sector: Grocery · Retail
Needs: A community grocery store. It needs stock capital and coaching to move from just getting by to steady profit.
Business: Budini Poultry
Sector: Livestock · Poultry
Needs: A poultry business on the rise. It needs capital for feed, housing, and animal care to become fully self-sustaining.
Evidence from the Field: Real Businesses. Real Jobs. Real Change.
Tamu Tamu Dishes Before
In the beginning, Ms Bethian Mwaracho was not running a business so much as holding one together with her bare hands, working out of a single old room. She had just one worker helping her, someone she could not even afford to pay properly and who had no real training in cooking or serving food. Meals came out inconsistent, service was slow, and customers who walked in once often did not come back — and it is not hard to imagine how discouraging it must have felt to watch people walk away without knowing why. Behind the scenes, there was no income steady enough to change any of it.
Tamu Tamu Dishes Now
Everything about Tamu Tamu Dishes looks different now, and it began with something simple: Bethian was given the chance to learn, and to believe she could do this well. With coaching, productive capital, and ongoing support through Civicom Aid, she learned how to prepare food consistently, train the person working alongside her, and welcome customers in a way that made them want to return — and one can imagine the quiet joy of watching a customer walk back through the door for a second time. The single unpaid helper of before has steadily grown into a team of five, all properly paid, all properly trained. Word has spread, and people now come to Tamu Tamu Dishes not just for the food, but because they trust what they will find there.
The most telling change has nothing to do with food at all. Within one year of Civicom Aid's investment, fifteen children — Bethian's own and those of her employees — went back to school, and living conditions improved alongside it. Behind every plate served at Tamu Tamu Dishes is now a child sitting in a classroom who would not have been there before, and it is worth imagining what it means for a parent to send their child to school knowing the income to keep them there is steady and real. This is not a business that changed once. It continues to grow, month after month, family after family.
Tamu Tamu Dishes New Business
Bethian's story is no longer one of survival. It is one of hope. What started with one untrained worker has, within two years, generated enough income for Bethian to open a second business with one paid employee — Civicom Aid's goal of creating jobs and returning children to school, fulfilled.
Malezi Bora Daycare Before
Fay Mbodze did not begin with a business at all. She began with Civicom Aid's coaching on how to start one. With no financial capital or assets — only the skills Civicom Aid had given her, and a room borrowed from a friend — she started Malezi Bora Daycare to care for children on behalf of mothers who needed to work but had been forced to stay home instead. The room was old, dirty, and leaking, but Fay used what she had learned to make a start of it.
Malezi Bora Daycare Now
A grant investment gave Fay the one thing she never had before: a starting point. From nothing, she built Malezi Bora Daycare from the ground up, and it is worth pausing to imagine what it feels like to watch something you only dreamed about slowly become real in front of you. What used to keep parents away was simple — there was nowhere for them to go at all — and what draws them in now is just as simple: a safe, caring place that did not exist before Fay created it. The daycare has since grown to include three paid members of staff, and Fay now moves through her days with a happiness that comes from knowing she built something out of nothing.
That happiness reaches further than the daycare walls. Within one year of Civicom Aid's investment, ten children — Fay's own and those of her employees — returned to school. Imagine the relief of a parent who no longer has to choose between earning a living and raising their child, because both are finally possible at once. Malezi Bora Daycare is not a story with a single happy ending. It is a business that keeps giving, term after term, family after family.
Support a Business. Change a Household.
Your grant or sponsorship helps an entrepreneur create jobs, restore household income, and return children to school.