Knit Her Future
Knit Her Future
Knit Her Future Girls Advocate CBO is a feminist, community-based organisation founded in November 2022 by a group of young mothers from Kabibi Beach, Kisumu County. We grew out of a support group started under the Health and Economic Development Strategy Organisation's (HEDSO) project on the economic integration of teen mothers.
Through that initiative, the young women who would go on to found Knit Her Future identified a deeper need: a sustained platform to advocate for the rights, health, and livelihoods of girls and women living along the Lake Victoria shoreline particularly those affected by transactional sex for fish, teen pregnancy, and rising HIV infection.
Our vision is thriving women and girls for sustainability. Our mission is to advance women's economic rights, strengthen their participation in leadership and governance, and promote their health and well-being.
In Kisumu's beach communities, where poverty rates exceed 45%, young women face a devastating bargain: trade sexual favours to fishermen, or go without the catch that feeds their household. Research from the African Population and Health Research Center found that nearly 30% of young women in these regions have engaged in transactional sex as a survival strategy.
It isn't a moral failing it's the absence of any other door. Most are school dropouts, locked out of land ownership, vocational training, and formal employment, with over 40% lacking basic sexual and reproductive health education to even understand the risks they're taking.
The result compounds across generations: malnutrition, untreated gender-based violence, and children born into the same cycle their mothers were trying to escape.
A single building, four rooms, forty futures. Once built, Kaloka will give 40 teenage mothers from our existing support groups a trade, a way to grow food without owning land, and somewhere safe to leave their children while they train.
40 teenage mothers trained with startup toolkits in each stream, ready to trade for income not survival.
A space-efficient growing method nutritious food and income for landless women, without needing land they don't own.
VSLAs formed, trained, and equipped to save, lend internally, and link to county and national women's enterprise funds.
A dedicated, furnished childcare space so mothers can train without choosing between their child and their future.
The Knit Her Future model runs across a 12-month cycle long enough to learn a skill, launch it, and watch it hold.
Renovate Kaloka, install tailoring, salon, computer and cone garden equipment, furnish childcare space.
Vocational training begins in earnest alongside cone gardening setup and the first VSLA formation.
Monthly SRHR, GBV, financial literacy, and nutrition sessions run alongside continued hands-on practice.
Business incubation, government fund linkage forum, and full-cycle impact assessment.
The Kaloka Centre runs on partnership — funders, mentors, and a community willing to show up. Here's where to start.
Cover a sewing machine, a cone garden kit, a startup toolkit, or a full training stream for one young mother.
Make a donation →Bring your skills in tailoring, finance, SRHR education, or business to a monthly session at Kaloka.
Offer your skill →Government agencies, NGOs, and local enterprises help us link these women to funds and markets that last.
Start a conversation →Every shilling, skill, and hour goes straight into the Kaloka Empowerment Centre and the women who will walk through its door.