Waithaka, Dagoretti — Nairobi, Kenya
Girls and Women.Ripples that Last.
We go to where the hardest-to-reach girls are — not waiting for them to find us. We open the door, fund the first step, and stay invested long enough to watch her walk through it.
One girl empowered becomes a household lifted. One household lifted becomes a community transformed.
When a girl is educated or a woman is empowered, the impact ripples outward — strengthening families, transforming communities, and driving progress that outlasts us. That is where our name comes from.
Opportunity rarely fails for a single reason.
Opportunity for girls and women in underserved communities rarely fails for a single reason. Money is often the first constraint, but it is rarely the only one — a missing skill, a closed door to capital, or the absence of anyone nearby who has already done what she is trying to do can each be enough to stall a promising future on their own. Closing one gap without the others is often not enough to change the outcome.
Education
School fees remain the single biggest reason girls leave school early, and the risk is highest at the transition points — primary to secondary, secondary to tertiary — when costs spike just as family resources are stretched thinnest. But paying the fees only solves half the problem. A girl who has never met someone from her own community who finished school or built a career has no template for what that future looks like.
Entrepreneurship
Girls and women often have the drive and the idea, but not the training or the start-up capital to turn either into a livelihood. Without business skills, a promising idea stays an idea; without seed funding, even a well-trained entrepreneur has no way to begin. And without a mentor who has built something of her own, there is no one to turn to when the business hits its first real setback.
Financial Inclusion
Formal financial systems are largely closed to underserved girls and women — no collateral, no credit history, and often no bank account at all. Informal savings groups fill some of the gap, but they cap what a woman can save, borrow, or grow beyond subsistence. Even a woman running a viable business is locked out of the credit she needs to expand it.
Our approach
A girl does not need one thing. She needs the next thing, every time.
We walk with girls and women through three stages of growth: staying in school and building the skills to succeed, learning to turn ideas into income, and gaining access to the financial tools that make that income last.
At every stage, the goal is the same — to help her see that once she is equipped, her future has no ceiling.
Our pillars
Three founding pillars, each with a flagship launching now — and one more we are building toward as funding allows.
- Flagship launching October 2026
Education
Nuru — light
Scholarships and mentorship that keep girls in school and open doors to what's possible beyond it.
- Scholars Fund
- Her Path, Her Power
- FutureHer
- Flagship launching October 2026
Entrepreneurship
Inuka — rise up
Training and seed capital that turn a good idea into a working business.
- Inuka
- Entrepreneurial Fellowship
- Flagship launching October 2026
Financial Inclusion
Hela — money
Savings tools and access to credit that help a business, and a household, grow beyond survival.
- Hela Smart
- Pesa Bila Wasiwasi
- In development
Disaster recovery
Imarisha — strengthen
Shelter, protection and counselling after floods and fires — where government response stops at documentation.
- Imarisha Fund
Who we serve
Girls and women in underserved communities in Kenya, with particular attention to those who are out of school, economically excluded, or lack access to the mentors and networks that could change their trajectory.
“When I finished secondary school, I had the grades for aeronautical engineering, but not the fees.”
Our story
We made it through because, at critical moments, someone invested in us.
Two women who started with very little. For years we did this quietly and personally — but quiet, personal giving has a ceiling. We started the Foundation in Waithaka, Dagoretti, the village that raised us, to do it on purpose and at scale.
Be the someone who invests first.
Before a girl can prove what she is worth, somebody has to decide she is worth backing. That decision is the whole difference — and it is the one we are asking you to make.
Where it goes
- Scholars Fund — Fully funded scholarships for high-performing students, awarded on academic and extracurricular achievement.
- Inuka — Inuka means “rise.” Vocational bootcamps paired with angel-investor-style business grants, taking young women from no trade to a funded first business.
- Hela Smart — Financial literacy classes held at the Foundation's campus.
Online giving opens with our October 2026 launch. To give or partner before then, please get in touch.