The beautiful photo of Maxmillah Waithera, in Kayole slum, Nairobi was taken by Sven Torfinn and features a project conceived by an award-winning Kenyan youth environmental entrepreneur called Gregory Kimani. It is featured in the recently published #Argidius Annual Review, which I was honoured to write and edit.
Kimani has set up an organisation called Mwengenye Greens which shows urban slum communities how to grow indigenous fruit and vegetables as both a source of income and nutrition.
In the land of the pandemic, shutdowns, and economic and social dislocation have had a huge impact on the partners and the entrepreneurs supported by the Argidius Foundation. The entrepreneurs featured in this review sought to navigate this new landscape – of disrupted supply lines, economic contraction, and displaced customers.
"We know from previous, country-specific crises, that business development services, effectively applied, can significantly reduce business failure rates, in some case halving them," says Nicholas Colloff, Executive Director of the Argidius Foundation.
"We, also, know that the demand for services rebound strongly after a crisis. For Argidius it is incumbent on us as a foundation to ensure that we sustain effective business support organizations through this crisis and beyond to ensure that the high-quality services provided by our partners continue to serve small and growing businesses in Africa, Latin America, and beyond."
You can read more about the work of Mwengenye Greens, plus six other stories from #Kenya, #Nicaragua and #Guatemala, in the report. Enjoy a dash of hope!
