EDC Kenya

Entrepreneurship + Digital Livelihoods + Creative Arts

Socio-economic Empowerment of Women Refugees in Kenya

About the Project

This project will seek to address three challenges – women’s access to livelihoods and entrepreneurship opportunities, opportunities to commercialize artistic talents, and overcoming obstacles posed by Covid-19. It will do so by integrating digital entrepreneurship components in skills development courses and utilize online marketplaces to showcase talents in creative arts. A group of female entrepreneurs will establish online businesses using digital tools, strategies, and practices and create peer-to-peer business relationships with female artisans and entrepreneurs in their communities. This project will advance gender equality by providing women with the ability to be self-sufficient, independent of geographic restrictions. It will increase the number of women entrepreneurs from the refugee community and allow the refugee community to monetize their artistic talent through online business practices.

Our implementation partner for this project is CAP Youth Empowerment Institute (CAPYEI); a nongovernment organization created in 2011 that is committed to training out-of-school youth in life skills, and in relevant labour market and entrepreneurial skills in hospitality, hairdressing, automobile repair and maintenance, construction, textiles, IT services and more.

Project Work & Phases

Project Phases:

1. Digital Curriculum (Jan 10 – Feb 25 2022)
2. Training of the Trainers (Feb 28 – March 11, 2022)
3. Mentorship (Summer – more info coming soon)

Project Support

• The International Development Institute (IDI), Humber College
• The Centre for Entrepreneurship (Experience Ventures funding), Humber College
• Faculty of Business, Humber College
• Rossie Kadiyska, Program Coordinator, Fashion Management Postgrad
• Mango Digital: Thomas Durham, Founder and CEO of Mango Digital and a graduate of the Digital Business Management BComm program is supporting our student team as an external consultant.

Multidisciplinary Team

Our multidisciplinary team of Humber students joined us from the following programs:

• Digital Business Management BComm, Longo Faculty of Business
• Fashion Arts and Business Diploma, Longo Faculty of Business
• Professional Writing & Communications Grad Certificate, The Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences and Innovative Learning
• Bachelor of Creative Advertising, The Faculty of Media and Creative Arts

Case Studies Report

Check the EDC Kenya Case Studies final report 2021-2022 (view PDF)