Mukuru Clean Stoves

Kenya

A dusk to dawn curfew has been installed nationwide by President Uhuru Kenyatta. In addition, travel restrictions increased to ban movement in and out of Nairobi, Mombasa, and two counties. Other restrictions include: closed borders; schools, pubs, entertainments venues, churches and mosques shut; everyone is required to wear face masks (arrest possible if not worn).

Concerns, Challenges and Adaptation Measures

Due to social distancing, Mukuru Clean Stoves has had to create new strategies to limit contact in their factory. Production and the number of workers were reduced to allow access to only two people at a time. Members of the production team are still working as they are unable to work from home. This will also ensure products are available when markets are open again. Due to the closure of markets, sales agents have closed their shops and Mukuru Clean Stoves has seen a drop in sales by almost 60%.

Emergency Fund

Rockflower supported Mukuru Clean Stoves through our Emergency Fund. Vulnerable families were identified with either young mothers or grandmothers living with 3 or more young children. They were able to distribute food parcels, including 2 kg of maize flour, 2 kg of rice, 1 liter of cooking oil, 2 kg of sugar, half a kg of salt, a bar of soap and face masks, and some cooking stoves to 25 families in Siaya County. The food will last a family for approximately one month.

Jiwo Paro

Kenya

A dusk to dawn curfew has been installed nationwide by President Uhuru Kenyatta. In addition, travel restrictions increased to ban movement in and out of Nairobi, Mombasa, and two counties. Other restrictions include: closed borders; schools, pubs, entertainments venues, churches and mosques shut; everyone is required to wear face masks (arrest possible if not worn).

Concerns, Challenges, and Adaptation Measures

Understanding the risks and preventative measures of COVID-19 are of utmost importance. Jiwo Paro recognized this and quickly arranged for a public health official to train their staff and beneficiaries on correct protocols.

Additionally, beneficiaries were urged to work from home whenever possible.

More training sessions are planned for the future, including a face mask sewing workshop.

Emergency Fund

The support from our Emergency Fund has helped purchase food packages, of flour, cooking oil and soap for handwashing, for 40 women entrepreneurs.

Cherehani Africa

Kenya

Kenya has had a partial lockdown with travel restrictions to ban movement in and out of Nairobi, Mombasa, and two counties. Additionally, it has an overnight nationwide curfew, that has resulted in more than 400 arrests for violations.

Concerns and Challenges

COVID-19 affected the economy with an immediate effect in Kenya, especially small businesses. The imposed curfew has limited business hours affecting those that rely on their daily incomes.

As the pandemic has continued, the restrictions have put several women micro-entrepreneurs out of business and threatens countless others.

Adaptation Measures

The following is an excerpt from Cherehani Africa’s Newsletter sent on April 8, 2020.

Customers
We are leveraging our knowledge platform to support the government's effort to disseminate information on best practices during this period to all onboarded customers via SMS. The information shared is from the Ministry of Health and WHO. 
We have introduced check-in phone calls to active customers in a bid to reassure them of our commitment during this difficult time and to assess other ways we could be of help.
We are restructuring loans for customers who are facing financial hardship due to the coronavirus.
We are financing customers in essential businesses like FMCG retail to enable them to deliver essential products and services to their communities.
We have suspended physical group meetings by our customers and are encouraging them to use face masks at all times when operating their businesses. 

Employees
We have implemented a work from home policy for staff in our Nairobi office.
We are promoting regular hand washing and use of hand sanitizers. We have availed personal protective gear (face masks) for our field team.
We have reduced requirements to our relief fund to enable employees to promptly access emergency funds during this period.

We are supporting the prevention measures recommended by the government by ensuring our staff at the HQ work from home and that field staff are well trained on how to go about their duties (social distancing, washing hands and sanitizing).

Emergency Fund

Cherehani Africa received money from our Emergency Fund that will be used to buy face masks that will be distributed to women vegetable vendors in rural communities. The vegetable vendors are an important part of the rural communities as they each serve tens of community members daily. It is crucial that they acquire and use protective gear when serving customers to instill health, safety, and confidence.

Women in Sustainable Development

Kenya

A dusk to dawn curfew has been installed nationwide by President Uhuru Kenyatta. In addition, travel restrictions increased to ban movement in and out of Nairobi, Mombasa, and two counties for three weeks.

Concerns, Challenges and Adaptation Measures

Most of Women in Sustainable Enterprises’ (WISE) activities involve trainings. Due to the ban on gatherings, these have been canceled. WISE continues to operate though as Caroline Odera, Founder and Director, and her team of volunteers works from home.

One of their main challenges at the moment is assisting their women entrepreneurs. Due to a lack of daily income for many households, those who are renting solar lamps are unable to pay. WISE is exploring how to combat this issue. Additionally, WISE was expanding to Mageta Island. However, the inter-county travel restrictions have put this on hold.

Emergency Fund

WISE received Emergency Funds from Rockflower. They quickly utilized the money and put many local interventions into action.

WISE issued 60 facemasks, bars of soap and cereals to the local women entrepreneurs that they engage within their programs.

They also involved the use of drama in the local language to better educate the women and the rest of the Dunga community on the importance of handwashing, wearing face masks and social distancing as part of the WHO preventative measures for contracting the coronavirus.