Asembo Skills for Hope: Equipping women with skills to prosper

Problem

50% of students in Kenya drop out of secondary school. 25% of children already drop out of primary school in rural areas. Many girls are unable to complete their education due to school costs. Without a path to earning a decent income many have little control over their own lives and instead follow the traditional roles of wife and mother. The cycle of poverty continues when they are unable to pay for their children’s education. Before participating in Asembo’s Skills Academy, the women’s average income was zero. Prior to joining the program, the 2023 cohort had less than 6€ in savings, no stove, and 20% of the women had to skip a meal due to a lack of money.

Solution

Asembo Skills for Hope provides an opportunity for women each year to enroll in their Skills Academy, which teaches vocational, entrepreneurship, and life skills, empowering them to earn an income and achieve agency. Their work is modelled after the Graduation Approach, which aims to break the generational cycle of poverty by focusing on impact over scale. Their core program, the Skills Academy, is an intensive year-long training program that equips 30 women per year with vocational, entrepreneurial, and life skills. Their current curriculum trains women to become seamstresses and they plan to add additional vocational skills in the future. Asembo Skills for Hope provides support long after the women graduate. Wellbeing is at the core, complemented by access to microloans and business coaching. They further launched a social enterprise in 2023 to close supply chain gaps for the graduates, create job opportunities, and stimulate economic growth in the region. Asembo stands out for their strong, data-driven internal impact monitoring, based on 70 indicators in 4 categories (income, economic status, agency, wellbeing).