Kitale, Kenya
Empowering Women.
Educating Children.
Transforming Communities.
Baskets and Beads Kenya creates pathways to opportunity through entrepreneurship and education, empowering women to build sustainable businesses, strengthen their families, and create brighter futures for their children.
Verified Member
Fair Trade Federation
5
women started the journey
In 2018, our founder bought half a suitcase of handmade magazine beads from five women in the Kipsongo slum in Kitale, Kenya.
40+
women are building a future
Today, more than 40 women are building businesses, creating income, and creating new possibilities for their families.
14
students are in school
14 students are currently receiving support through our Educating Children program.
More than fair trade
A Circle of
Transformation.
Kipsongo may mean “hopelessness,” but through the Circle of Transformation, the story is changing, from hopelessness to hope.
Matumaini, hope in Swahili, is taking root and growing through opportunity, meaningful work, education, and the transformation taking place within the community.
The women of Kipsongo have faced displacement, poverty, and limited access to opportunity. But what they lacked was never ability. It was access: to training, to markets, and to sustainable opportunity.
Baskets and Beads began by helping create that access. The women built from there, learning, earning, and creating new possibilities for themselves and their families.
That is the Circle of Transformation: a woman earns, a family eats, a child goes to school, and she turns around and brings the next woman in.
When women thrive, families thrive. When families thrive, communities thrive.
Hope is not a word here. It is a woman earning, a child in school, and a community beginning to change.
How it works
Transformation begins with opportunity.
Immediate support can meet today’s need. But opportunity, education, and capacity change what becomes possible tomorrow, and the impact continues from woman to woman and generation to generation.
Opportunity
A woman joins the group and has access to a market for the products she creates.
Capacity
Table banking loans, literacy education, business mentorship, and tools to strengthen her faith and transform her mindset equip her to turn skill and opportunity into a sustainable livelihood.
Generations
She uses her income to provide for her family, sends her children to school, and helps create opportunity for the next woman.
Empowering women
Women create value.
More than 40 women are building businesses and creating new possibilities for themselves, their families, and their community.
Dorcas Iris
One of the original five. Today she manages operations in Kipsongo and trains the women who come after her.
Read her story →
Rael Sinde
She sews and crafts trivets; her daughter is the first in the family to reach college.
Read her story →
Akuleu
At eighty-nine she weaves Turkana baskets, and pays for her own medical care for the first time.
Read her story →
Building capacity
Education changes generations.
Education creates opportunity for women today, and for children building their futures.
Literacy changes everything.
A woman who reads can check a scale, understand a contract, keep her own records, and make informed decisions for herself and her family.
17 women are currently in literacy classes, three days a week.
Education opens the door to a different future.
We sponsor students through high school, college, and university, helping cover the costs that can otherwise make continued education impossible.
14 students are currently receiving support.
Stay connected
Stay connected to the mission.
A few emails a year: stories from Kenya, updates on the women and students, and what’s happening next.
Or email eldonna@basketsandbeadskenya.com and we will add you.