For years, Alice Odhiambo and her husband lived in Homabay, a small town on the coast of Lake Victoria in Western Kenya—where they sold fish at the local market. Alice’s husband was diagnosed with cancer, and they were forced to move closer to family, but without a consistent livelihood, they faced worsening food and income insecurity. When Alice’s husband passed away, she had to find a new way to survive.
She started looking for ways to make money off her small plot of land—she began growing and selling vegetables, using a borehole to fetch buckets of water to irrigate her plot. The work was laborious, and the water level was starting to decline. Like many, she didn’t have the finances to expand her enterprise.
She joined Siaya Seed Savings and Credit Cooperative, a community-based financial organization that provides saving and credit services to its members through collective ownership and training on financial literacy and management. Finally, Alice discovered an irrigation solution at a farmer field day training hosted by KickStart through her SACCO. She was convinced to buy a MoneyMaker Starter Pump, which she purchased with 1,000 ksh ($10) down and a six-month loan from Siaya Seed SACCO. Alice started irrigating and dug a small water catchment with new profits to collect rainwater to supplement the borehole. With the Starter Pump, she built a reliable livelihood by growing traditional vegetables (sukuma, managu, etc.) and gained local popularity and credibility as a farmer for her high-quality off-season crops—securing a contract to supply vegetables at the VIP hotel in Ugunja town.
While Alice's children are grown up, she has adopted three orphaned relatives under her care and is optimistic about the future. She has repaid her loan and often lends out her Starter Pump to family and neighbors, free of charge. She knows firsthand how life’s unexpected blows and financial barriers can set back one’s aspirations and believes everyone should have the opportunity to thrive. Alice finds great joy in caring for the three children in her care and has gained enormous esteem as a female leader, changing the status quo for women and other widows in her community.
Alice’s story is inspiring and an apt example of how KickStart works to get its tools into the hands of rural entrepreneurs—representing one of the over 400,000 irrigation pumps distributed across Africa. KickStart partners with hundreds of partners like Siaya Seed SACCO, who have networks of farmers and trusted relationships with community members. From there, KickStart works on the education piece by introducing and training farmers on KickStart’s pumps, irrigation, and its benefits, many of whom havenever practiced irrigation before. Through partnerships, KickStart works to create linkages for farmers without credit options to farmer-friendly loans with other financing services, government subsidies, and support services—bringing together the necessary collaborators to enable millions more farmers—like Alice—to irrigate, establish food security, and move out of poverty.