What We Do

Building a Better Tomorrow

Restoring hope and dignity for a bright future

The Naledi Initiative endeavors at ending poverty in all its forms everywhere in Kenya. We are spirited about providing sustainable solutions to poverty. In Kenya, 70% of families live on a dollar a day. We are a community-based organization. Our head office is in Meru, in northwest Kenya. Naledi Initiative is for the rural people by the rural people. We work in • healthcare; • establishing small enterprises, especially for women; • empowering under-served communities in peace building; • supporting schools We conduct interviews and surveys and hold discussions to give us context of the communities in order to provide evidence-based research, before moving forward for suitable interventions. Solving the right problem with the most effective approach sounds simple, but is a very often wrongly assumed. It requires understanding of the community, its environment and social-economic status and the problem. Hence, we find the best approach is from down up.

Main Areas of Impact

In its activities naledi initiative focus mainly on four key areas..

Naledi Initiative empowers the poorest, especially women and girls in rural areas, to take charge of their lives. We work together within our local communities to facilitate their economic growth in the first instance by providing them with a literacy program in understanding of quality finance. For example, table banking and entrepreneurship education (basket weaving) that lead to a sustained income generating project. Here’s a sample of table banking model we use in the table banking groups:

Table Banking is a group-based resource mobilization. A concept in which a group of between 10 to 30 members get together every month to save and borrow money. During their gathering, members register themselves; then discuss the contribution, from a minimum of Kshs.200 to any amount decided by the group which is set as their maximum saving. They place their savings on a table. Members are then able to borrow from the money collected to boost their income-generating livelihoods. It’s a healthy gathering for a social-economic benefit.

How Table Banking actually works A group of women, from neighborhood villages comes together and form a group of 10 to 30 members. They meet once a month and others meet weekly according to the agreement between themselves.

Every member saves a minimum of Kshs.200 per month which forms a “revolving fund”.

During the meeting, they put their savings on the table. Any member can request for an immediately “loan” according to her needs, to boost the capital of her business. This loan is repayable the following month.

After a month, the group meet again around the table and the members bring their saving. Repayment of the loan is done for those who took at the previous months’ meeting. A member can access a short-term or a long-term loan. A clear log of incoming and outgoing of money is kept.

Short-term loans are available up to two times a member’s savings which is repayable in one month, while long-term loans are available up to three times a member’s savings and repayable in 6 months to 12 months according to the amount borrowed.

Short-term loans attract an interest of 10% while long-term loans attract an interest of 12% p.a on a reducing balance. A member gets a guarantor among their group members to secure any borrowing. The Naledi Initiative comes in when the groups demand a loan that exceeds their savings; OR after every 6 months to lend the group an additional amount of money at zero interest to boost their kitty.

Naledi Initiative support them with seed funds to boost their kitty or a start-up for a new community table banking self-help women’s group. Naledi Initiative trains them in financial literacy like bookkeeping and social-entrepreneurial skills. Today members of table banking are changing their lives by empowering themselves and their families through projects like poultry farming; goat keeping; basket weaving and small-scale farming. They can access basic needs for their family like education, food and clothing.

Naledi Initiative get its funds, to support these women groups, by holding fundraising activities and events and well-wishers.

Community peace building is a process of creating a safe and secure environment in which people can live and work together in harmony.

It involves conflict resolution; mediation and dialogue; shared information and education; solutions designed to reduce violence, promote understanding and cooperation between different ethnic or tribal groups. It also includes creating a sense of shared responsibility for the well-being of the community, and developing strategies to address the underlying causes of conflict.

It is one of Naledi Initiative’s mission to help in resolving community disagreements with community-eldership dialogue and finding the solution within, through workshop and education. Our Community Empowerment Programs (CEP) engage communities in three main ways: through Community Visioning; providing Human Rights Based education classes for adults and youth; and through the training and support of a Community Management Committee (CMC) designed to advance community projects.

Naledi’s Community Empowerment Program not only supports communities to achieve their vision but also helps them sustain the changes they make and improve their resilience to address challenges and opportunities that may arise in the future.

For the last 4 year, our focus has been on offering FREE CANCER SCREENING in counties of Meru, Tharaka Nithi and Isiolo. These areas have recorded highest rates of cancer in the whole country. We believe that cancer awareness advocacy and early screening may save lives and reduce the financial and emotional burden for the families.

Our 4 advocacies of free cancer screening:
1. Early Detection: Our free cancer screening can help detect cancer in its early stages, when it is most treatable.
2. Cost Savings: Free cancer screening can save finances for individuals and families who end up going back & forth from local dispensary to sub-county hospital and eventually end up at a private hospital.
3. Improved Quality of Life: Early detection of cancer helps people to start understanding the disease, make changes in their lifestyles and diets.
4. Increased Awareness. Knowledge about the common signs and symptoms of various cancers; the role of being physically active; more organic agricultural practices for pesticide-free and insecticide-free paradigm.

COMMUNITY NEED

Rates of cervical and breast cancer in Kenya, especially in the rural communities are unacceptably high. Survival from these cancers is poor, largely due to late presentation and a lack of early diagnosis and screening programs. Breast cancer new cases are leading followed by cervical cancer but cervical cancer is leading with death cases in Kenya.

Cervical cancer is preventable and curable, as long as it is detected early and managed effectively. Yet it is the leading with death cases of cancers in Kenya. This because access to public health services is limited, financial constraints, limited access of screening and treatment for the disease have not been widely implement (WHO,2025).

The Need:

Cancer Awareness (To minimize stigma and myth associated by breast and cervical cancer).
Routine cervical and cancer screening community outreach camps for early detection.
Precancerous lesion treatment for cervical cancer
HPV vaccination of girls between 10 to 14 years old.
Establishment of cancer support groups
The research on Awareness and Timely Help-Seeking Behaviour.

Cervical cancer, one of the most preventable types of cancer, kills 300,000 women each year, with more than 90 percent of deaths occurring in low- and middle-income countries.

According to WHO to eliminate cervical cancer, all countries must reach and maintain an incidence rate of below 4 per 100 000 women. Achieving that goal rests on three key pillars and their corresponding targets:

vaccination: 90% of girls fully vaccinated with the HPV vaccine by the age of 15;
screening: 70% of women screened using a high-performance test by the age of 35, and again by the age of 45;
treatment: 90% of women with pre-cancer treated and 90% of women with invasive cancer managed.

Breast cancer is one of the most diagnosed cancers among women in Kenya, yet early detection rates remain depressingly low. The reasons are complicated and deeply social. Many women delay screenings out of fear of what they might find. Others struggle with limited access to diagnostic services, especially in rural counties. Misinformation, stemming from myths about causes and misconceptions about treatment, continues to discourage open discussion.

“We have many women coming to hospitals when it’s too late to save the breast,” notes Dr. Consenta Gatumi - obstetrician and gynaecologist . “We must focus on community education and encourage early screening if we are to change these numbers.” The result is a silent epidemic that persists not only in hospitals but also in homes, workplaces, and social spaces, where discussing cancer remains a taboo topic.

Cervical and Breast Cancer Prevention program (create a new page replace the event menu)

We have created a community mobile cancer screening model, whereby we mobilize volunteers both medics and non-medics, to travel from their main operating hospitals or facilities to rural communities to offer a free cancer screening to the rural communities. We use the local public primary school to conduct our screening medical camps and we convert classrooms to be screening stations and play ground as triage, registration stations and waiting bay. We partition classrooms with bed-sheets for privacy, borrow examination couches or use tables if we don’t get examination couches. We do our medical camps weekends when the pupils are not at school.

We partner with the county government department of health services and public referral hospitals to refer suspicious cancer cases for further investigation.

We focus on Prevention Strategies:

Cancer Awareness Advocacy

We engage cancer experts (Survivors) and health community promoters to create awareness to schools, women groups, churches and clan gathering.

We use vernacular speaking radio fm and Televisions.

Media is the tool that shatters silence:

When we broadcast a segment on the importance of early screening, they aren’t just creating content. They are walking into a kitchen in a remote village and telling a mother that her life matters.

A SINGLE BROADCAST CAN CHANGE THE COURSE OF A LIFE.

“If I had not heard that program on radio i would never have gone for screening” -muuga fm listener

Screening for early and precancerous lesion treatment for cervical cancer

Our implementation:

Breast Health Screening through; Breast Self Examination and Clinical Breast Examination
Cervical Health Screening through: Visual inspection with acetic acid (VIA) and Pap Test (Pap Smear).
Treatment of precancerous lesion through portable therma ablation machines.

Women queining for cervical and breast health screening

Reproductive health nurses in setting the classroom for screening.

Doctors setting portable thermal ablation machines in primary school classroom.

Triage Serving Station in the School Field

Registration Desk before they are distributed to the triage station

Cancer Support Group

We establish the community psychological cancer support group which consist of cancer survivor, cancer patients and cancer caregivers. Each group has leadership and they are registered as self-help group in the department of social services. They meet once per week for peer therapy and also invite nurses and nutritionist as guest speaker.

We normally brings nearby groups together when we have resources for one day therapy workshop especially on emotion healing tools and self-care tools.

May 2026 workshop 100 + cancer survivors and their care givers attended

Some of the emotional healing tools discussed on that day

Fountain of Hope Support Group-Training on exercise as part of self-care.

Building a Better Tomorrow

Main Areas of Impact

26

OCT

2024

Meru Cycling Tour - 2nd Edition Meru