We continue to see tremendous resilience around us as our entrepreneurs and communities push forward in the face of the immense challenges of the past 6 months. Our entrepreneurs took on Covid and found ways to imagine new futures and build stronger communities.
We are proud to announce that Somo has now created over 1,300 jobs! 202 of these people are directly employed by Somo businesses and over 1,100 have obtained jobs from training or as a reseller. On average, our entrepreneurs and their full-time employees earn 2.5x the income of the average person across the communities where we work. We are excited to see this impact multiply as we expand across Kenya, creating employment by investing in community-led initiatives and providing the resources entrepreneurs need to build sustainable enterprises.
Entrepreneur Highlight: Jeniffer & Scorch
Jeniffer founded Scorch Chilli to create livelihoods for women facing domestic abuse, giving them and their children freedom. Scorch Chilli now employs 3 young women from Githurai, and has expanded its product line to include a full range of chilli products.
Jeniffer is now launching her own farm in Ngoliba, which will create another 10 jobs.
Have you tried Scorch yet? If not, you are missing out! Order Jennifer's products through Somo Duka. You can get Mango Pickle, Lemon Chilli, Hot n’ Sweet, Chilli Oil, Chilli Powder and Chilli Flakes.
MyDuka
MyDuka is live! MyDuka is our own USSD-based tool that enables entrepreneurs to submit transaction data and automatically generate cash flows and income statements that track and manage their businesses. MyDuka creates profiles for entrepreneurs to monitor all the essential business data that then becomes the basis for communication with partners, advisors and investors.
Charles, our Tech Lead, grew up with his single mother and two brothers in Nairobi’s slums. His mother had a small business that he saw fall apart when he was young. In part, he believes, this was due to not having proper financial records. When he got a scholarship to university to study applied math, he had few computer skills. He and his friend dared each other to see who could hack the other one first, not actually knowing what hacking meant. Charles proceeded to download PDFs on the school computer to teach himself to code. When Charles heard about Somo, he left his university and moved back to Nairobi to go through our Buruka training, wanting to create a tool to support other small business owners like his mom.
Working with many other entrepreneurs from low-income communities, we have observed struggles similar to what Charles’s mom faced. MyDuka helps businesses track their financial and impact data, with the goals of helping them understand their businesses and access additional financing. This simple USSD technology streamlines data entry for entrepreneurs and helps them capture their business potential.
DigiSomo
You can now access DigiSomo content from any device! Our DigiMessage content (available through WhatsApp) offers local stories and gamified quizzes to reinforce learning. We partnered with Arifu to create our DigiMessage material, and it can be accessed through their WhatsApp channel, ArifuBot.
Our DigiVoice content (available through a dial-in voice number) makes the content accessible to entrepreneurs with a low level of literacy — story-based audio training that gives them the tools to run a successful business.
All of our DigiVideo content (available through YouTube) is free to use by anyone. We partnered with Somo business Portable Voices to create our DigiVoice and DigiVideo content. Interested in using DigiSomo content for your training program? Please reach out through contact@somoafrica.org.
In addition to our DigiSomo content, trainees go through daily classes over Zoom and are paired with an entrepreneur mentor, one of our portfolio entrepreneurs currently running a successful business. Know any aspiring social entrepreneurs? Tell them to apply to our next cohort, launching in January 2021!
Mombasa Launch!
Our September 2020 Cohort welcomed 10 trainees from Mombasa! From creating a solar powered fish freezer that uses a pay-as-you-go model to making tiles from plastic bottles, we are excited to be working with a group of amazing innovators on the coast.
Expanding Our Portfolio
Somo now has 107 businesses in our portfolio! Check out some of the new ones we are excited about:
2. Samwell has launched his first toilet in Korogocho that will power a biodigester to make energy.
3. Along with their new gym in Olympic, Henry and Steven of Globlin Gym are organizing socially distanced hikes to help people stay safely active.
4. Frederick is “turning waste into wealth” through his black soldier fly business that uses waste to make animal feeds and fertilizer.
5. Nora is using the waste from the fishing industry in Kisumu to make jewelry and flowers from fish bones and scales. She is now working to expand her product line to make shoes out of fish leather.
Tengeneza na Somo
This year we have invested in our market access programs, expanding from 11% of our entrepreneurs’ sales in 2019 to 40% in 2020. Our next step is building a manufacturing space in Githurai for our food and hygiene businesses. Stay tuned to learn more!
Argidius Annual Report
In their 2019 report, Argidius Foundation highlights Mwengenye Greens and Somo, featured among the organizations that are making a difference in the midst of a pandemic.
As always, we are extremely grateful to all of you for your support.
