Likoni 203 Slum Region

A crowded coastal settlement with few economic opportunities and high rates of school dropout and youth unemployment.

Bangladesh Slum Region

A deeply marginalized settlement where persons with disabilities are among the most excluded from economic life.

Moroto Slum Region 

An informal community where women and youth face extra barriers to income and resources.

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.

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.

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.

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.

What the community says

What started as a dream with no foundation has become a place of stability and joy for an entire community, and one can only imagine the pride Fay feels each morning walking into a daycare that used to exist only in her mind. Three people now find purpose and income through her work, ten children now walk into classrooms instead of staying behind, and countless more find safety and warmth because Fay turned nothing into something real — and keeps building on it still.