Kidogo

Sustainable childcare has the power to elevate opportunities for all people, especially those who are traditionally left behind - women and children from poor communities in East Africa - an area where my family is from. In Swahili, Kidogo means small and our motto is ‘great things start small’ - this refers not only to the potential in each child that enters Kidogo’s early childhood centres, but also to ourselves as an organisation. We started small, we have been doing great things, now we are ready to grow and amplify our impact. 

In 5 years, Kidogo has grown to become the largest childcare provider in Kenya - however we have big, bold dreams of scaling across the region. We would use the Elevate Prize funding to support these plans by entering new communities, training more entrepreneurial women (“Mamapreneurs”) and ensuring tens of thousands of young children are given the best start to life. 

We are also excited to leverage the marketing and media expertise to amplify our systems change work and create a movement around the importance of the early years so that ultimately every child, no matter where they are born, has the opportunity to reach their full potential.

Nearly 10 years ago while working at a large non-profit in Kenya, I stepped into a ten-square-foot corrugated metal shack, where the air was pungent with the smell of urine and feces. In the darkness, I inched my way forward when my foot stumbled upon something – I looked down to see a little girl, who seemed unshaken by the accidental nudge. A few steps further lay two dozen more infants. Though all were awake, their perfect bodies remained still. In this make-shift daycare, the only sound was silence. I learned that this was the best childcare option for working mothers, who had to decide between leaving children at home alone, with an older sibling who is pulled out of school, or relying on one of these 3000+ informal, unlicensed childcare centres at a fee (~$1/day). 

As a first-generation Canadian whose parents grew up in East Africa, my first reaction was “this could have been me”. 

My vision is to create a world where every child, no matter where they are born, has the opportunity to reach their full potential. I’ve spent much of the last decade building the largest childcare network in Kenya. Next stop: East Africa.

In Kenya’s informal settlements where over 60% of the urban population lives, mothers have to make a difficult decision about where to leave their children (0-3 years) when they go to work: either home alone, with an older sibling who has been pulled out of school or at an informal daycare. These unlicensed centers do more harm than good, subjecting children to poor nutrition, hygiene, neglect, and even abuse, which reduces their lifelong developmental potential during their most important early years. Globally, 350 million children find themselves in this situation - it’s a childcare crisis. 

To address this problem, Kidogo uses a social franchising model to partner with entrepreneurial women “Mamapreneurs” to help them start or improve their own childcare micro-businesses. Kidogo begins with community mapping and recruiting women running informal daycares. Identified Mamapreneurs complete a 3-month accelerator, including training in Early Childhood Development and entrepreneurship. Those that meet Kidogo’s quality standards receive a retro-fit, branding, and ongoing quality assurance as a franchisee. This allows children to get the best start to life during their crucial first 1,000 days, enables mothers to work with “peace of mind”, adolescent girls return to school, and Mamapreneurs to earn a dignified livelihood.

Unlike most NGOs that operate as “projects'' or provide one-off training, Kidogo runs a sustainable, long-term organization that has ongoing, continued relationships with its childcare providers and families, as it grows to new regions. We combine elements of business principles with a strong community-based approach while concentrating on women at all levels - children, adolescent girl siblings, mothers, and female entrepreneurs. We also shake up the status quo through our play-based methodologies that disrupt traditional ideas of rote memorization learning and the need to discipline through caning. And in a sector where providers are seen as second-class workers, we build the confidence of our Mamapreneurs and seek to elevate the childcare profession through community engagement and advocacy. In these ways, we consider ourselves disrupters of the childcare sector.

In addition, Kidogo works not only as a service provider but is a pioneering voice in the systems change sphere. We work closely with the government of Kenya on creating progressive childcare policies, support global partners on replicating our social franchising model, and contribute to global strategies such as the World Bank’s recent white paper on childcare and the IFC’s employer-supported childcare task force.

By improving access to quality, affordable childcare, Kidogo enables kids to have a more equitable start to life and achieve better health and school outcomes. Kidogo Kids are in the top 5% of their class when they graduate to primary school and out-perform others in all areas of development, particularly executive function and socio-emotional learning - both necessary precursors to problem-solving and critical thinking skills. We are building the next generation of entrepreneurs, professionals, artists, etc. who will be able to contribute meaningfully to their societies. Kidogo also empowers women to own and operate their own childcare micro-businesses, supports mothers to work with peace of mind so that they can increase household earnings, and frees older female siblings from the burden of caregiving so that they can return back to school. 

Since its founding in 2014, working with 100 children, Kidogo now directly improves the lives of over 10,000 children. We have been doubling our reach for four consecutive years. We have ambitious scale-up plans and are building our team, expanding partnerships and entering new regions so that we can reach our big goal: 100,000 Kidogo Kids across East Africa by 2025.

We currently have a network of 540 Mamapreneurs (entrepreneurial women who we partner with to help them start or improve their own childcare micro-businesses) serving over 10,000 children and families. We have ambitious scale-up plans and are building our team, expanding partnerships, and entering new regions to support the plans - in one year we plan to have 650 Mamapreneurs in our network directly serving 15,500 kids and families.

Kidogo has big, bold impact goals and we have been doubling our reach every year since 2017. By 2024 we intend to everyday impact 70,000 kids and families served by 2700 Mamapreneurs. Through our direct impact on Mamapreneurs, kids and families we will ensure quality early childhood education, improve gender equality - free from the burden of caregiving mothers can work, adolescent female siblings can attend school, support access to work and economic growth for our Mamapreneur caregivers and mothers, with our health interventions, increase the health and wellbeing of our Kidogo kids and reduce inequalities. 

We plan to achieve this through two main areas: partnerships and expansion.

We see opportunities to grow through partnerships - collaborating with organizations who are in need of our knowledge and experience to create quality, affordable childcare programs. In addition, we see opportunities to grow in areas with high female employment rates and low family support (e.g. no grandmothers available to take care of younger kids). With trends in rural to urban migration across East Africa and higher female employment, there are opportunities to grow across the region.

The main barriers that exist are:

• The tension between quality (especially caregiver to child ratios) and centre profitability. 

• The lack of a policy framework and regulations that support childcare. For example, in Kenya, there is no way to register as a childcare centre and there are no minimum standards. 

• Funding our scale-up - we have big dreams and we need resources to accomplish this.

• Growing our internal processes to match our scale. 

The Elevate Prize would help us overcome these barriers by:

• Financial Support: To achieve our big, bold impact goals we need financial support. The Elevate Prize would allow us to hire new team members, expand our support for children (e.g. health and wellness interventions) and train more Mamapreneurs on quality caregiving. 

• Amplification: To create a global impact we need to leverage the media. The strategic marketing and media expertise from Elevate will allow us to spread our message and advocate for childcare and childcare policies on a global scale. 

• Mentorship: As an organization, we have grown and scaled, but we still have so much to learn. The mentorship could give guidance on how to mitigate the quality tension and grow our internal processes.

As an Elevate Prize winner we would use the platform, audience, and brand recognition to enhance our systems change work (advocating for childcare, children and caregivers), identify and form diverse partnerships - both financial and collaborative partnerships and build connections. Our approach is one of collaboration, not competition. We know that creating sustainable change takes a village. The Elevate Prize network would be an incredible ecosystem to collaborate for global change.

Moreover, the tailored media campaign would help shift the narrative around childcare and caregivers - framing childcare as an essential public good and a precursor for women's economic equality and framing caregivers (who are overwhelming female) as heroes doing meaningful, essential work. 

Kidogo’s team is 85% female with female leadership at all levels of the organization - including a female CEO/Co-Founder. We strive to create an inclusive, enabling environment for mothers through longer maternity/paternity leave, flexible hours, and an office breastfeeding room. Our commitment to working mothers led to Kidogo being recognized as one of Nairobi’s baby-friendly workplaces by the Kenya Private Sector Alliance. Our intersectional approach which recognizes the importance of childcare in gender equity has seen us recognized by Harvard researchers on Gender Synthesis and featured as a case study in multiple publications including the Gates Foundation COVID-19 recovery paper. 

In addition, to promote diversity we ensure that our team is made up of folks from different tribes and religions - from the field level to Kidogo’s leadership.

Our team is made up of passionate, experts in childcare, health & nutrition, partnerships and play! Our team is almost 100% Kenyan, many from the communities we serve and over 85% female. We are playful, bold, curious, resourceful, transparent members of the same Kidogo Family. Our innovative Kidogo Way approach to childcare includes ensuring (1) safe, stimulating environments (2) nurturing caregivers (3) play-based activities (4) health, WASH, and nutrition (5) parent & community engagement (6) business and administration support at each centre we work with. 

As a team we have doubled our reach and impact every year since 2017, we have accomplished this through hard work, engagement, and relationship building with stakeholders at all levels and conducting advocacy work to advocate for childcare, children, and caregivers on both the national and global level.

In December 2011, I uncovered a childcare crisis in Nairobi’s informal settlements. Working as a Maternal & Child Health project manager at a large non-profit in Kenya, I stepped into a ten square-foot corrugated metal shack, where the air was pungent with the smell of urine and feces. In the darkness, I moved forward when my foot stumbled upon something – I looked down to see a little girl, who seemed unshaken by the accidental nudge. A few steps further lay two dozen more infants. Though all were awake, their perfect bodies remained still. I learned that this was the best childcare option for working mothers, who had to decide between leaving children at home alone, with an older sibling who is pulled out of school, or relying on one of these 3000+ informal, unlicensed childcare centres. 

Shaken by the incident, I decided to do something. I spent a few years learning about the issue through hundreds of interviews with mothers and babycare operators and conducted a global benchmarking study to understand how other countries were tackling the issue of quality, affordable childcare. In 2014, I postponed my Masters’ and teamed up with my now-husband, Afzal to start Kidogo.

• IDRC/GROW International Women’s Day Event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJ Xda 7X3w

• 2018 Unilever Young Entrepreneur Awards: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRv--w1rX08

• World Bank Whitepaper Launch: Better Jobs and Brighter Futures: Investing in Childcare to Build Human Capital https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYj7Pwea8mg&t=3290s

With the Elevate Prize funding, Kidogo will have the resources to scale. Our ambitious scaleup plans for this year include expanding into new communities. This includes supporting 650 Mamapreneurs (who reside in informal settlements) through a quality improvement program with mentorship, facility retrofits, ongoing quality assurance, enhancing technology in the childcare business and assistance in setting up multiple centers. Kidogo will hire new Franchising Officers (who reside in informal settlements) and support 15,500 children - each direct impact on a child has an indirect multiplier effect of 3 (improved household impact on mothers and older siblings).

• African Population and Health Research Centre - research project that will examine the impact of Kidogo’s social franchising model on women’s economic and labour participation outcomes  

• Clean Start - introduced our childcare model into women’s prisons in Kenya 

• Give Directly - cash transfers to Kidogo families in informal settlements (COVID-19 partnership)  

• Kisumu County - Vocational Training Centres - Kidogo set up childcare centres in county Vocational Training Centres so young mothers can receive an education free from worrying about childcare. 

• Mum’s Village - distributed child packs that included masks, diapers, wet wipes, sanitizer and soap (COVID-19 partnership) 

• PVI Media - assisted us in coming up with media content and building media capacity  within the team

• Ubongo - created video clips to support Kidogo’s goals of play-based learning at home (COVID-19 response partnership) 

• Unilever - provided each open childcare centre in our network with soap and water (COVID-19 partnership)  

• Uthabiti Africa - supported Uthabiti to understand the ecosystem of ECD in Kenya 

• World Bank - contributed to the World Bank’s white paper ‘Better Jobs and Brighter Futures: Investing in Childcare to Build Human Capital’

• World Food Programme - assisted families with a monthly cash transfer to buy food (COVID-19 partnership)