NAIROBI, Kenya, Jun 12 — The community-driven change, championed by Shining Hope for Communities (SHOFCO), has now become a model for global NGOs following a case study conducted by Bridgespan Group which had a close-up look at on-the-ground approaches that make the Kenyan organisation deliver.
A renowned US organisation that provides management consulting to nonprofits and philanthropists, Bridgespan identified five mutually reinforcing mindsets that help orient these NGOs around community members’ priorities and lived experiences.
Based in Boston, Massachusetts, Bridgespan has recently become the consulting firm billionaires turn to when they want to give away money.
Bridgespan Group is guiding the philanthropic choices of many leading donors, including MacKenzie Scott, ex-wife to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation among others.
Shofco, which employs over 800 people in 15 counties in Kenya with plans to expand to up to 30, was among four top organisations in the world that have experienced great success through ground up, community-driven change that were sampled alongside Mumbai-based CORO and Youth for Unity and Voluntary Action as well as Ubuntu Pathways, which works in South Africa’s Gqeberha (formerly Port Elizabeth) townships.
Founded in 2004 by its CEO Dr Kennedy Odede as a way of uplifting his community after growing up in poverty in Kibera slums, Shofco is now a grassroots movement that has impacted over 2.5 million slum dwellers in Kenya through various causes such access to health, water, community advocacy platforms, education and leadership development for women and girls.
Shofco Urban Network (SUN), a grassroots movement that brings together individuals and households through social groups, is the key pillar of the ogransation that ensures community-driven change is achieved.
There are over two million SUN members in Kenya. SUN also has a SACCO that is rapidly growing.
SUN has also served a platform where slum residents come together to share ideas and what needs to be done in the community by the private sector and government.
Over the years, SUN has worked closely with the slum population in bringing change to the community through provision of critical services such as education, health, counselling and food distribution, while assisting the local administration in issues such as addressing Gender-Based Violence (GBV), Nyumba Kumi Initiative, National Census and Covid-19 pandemic.
It is not just these success stories that Bridgespan were interested in but rather how they were achieved.
Dr Odede has been a champion of community-led change, believing that it is pointless to attempt to lift slum dwellers if the beneficiaries are not involved.
“We can no longer afford to live in a world of aid workers and beneficiaries. We must recognise the talents that exist in marginalised communities and unlock this potential to drive durable social change,” Dr Odede said in a past forum.
He repeated the same message at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month. “We see people flying in and think that they can save people but that cannot happen. We have to understand the experience of the leaders who are there. Poverty can be eradicated if we give the tools to the people,” the Shofco boss said.
He has been on the forefront of those out to ensure philanthropy is decolonised by encouraging donors and private sector to start working with grassroots organisations.
It is the same message he shared with USAID directors Michele Sumilas and Adam Phillips who paid a visit in Kibera to have a look at Shofco’s cutting-age clean water facility, Kibera School for Girls, Shofco clinics and gender-based violence and community-organising programmes last month.
The visit from the USAID officials happened after Odede hosted the administrator of the American aid agency Samantha Power just before she assumed office in March 2021 during the inaugural World Communities Forum.
It is for this reason that Shofco stood out among the other NGOs around the world with Bridgespan concluding that their model of community-driven change has achieved impact that lasts because the community feels a sense of ownership.
Indeed, Shofco, who have a cutting-edge water treatment facility in the slums that can pump up to 300,000 litres of water at a time, two tuition-free schools for girls in Kibera and Matahre plus seven clinics attending to over 600 patients a day at near zero cost, have won over the community who are now the protectors of these critical assets.
