Plan International – Increase income levels of young mothers in Nairobi slums

Situation

Plan International is focusing on empowering girls and women. It desired to solve challenges around Base-of-Pyramid in urban settings. This resulted in identifying Kibera, one of the largest slums in the world. Instead of directly generating ideas, it contracted Proportion to facilitate a research and design spring in Nairobi. 

Assignment

The challenge that needed to be addressed was formulated through the question: How can we empower young women to increase their income?

Approach

There was a 2-week innovation sprint. During week 1 we held a research sprint to go from a wide problem to a well-defined design challenge based on expert input and qualitative research with youth within the community.

1. Research sprint (1 week) 
   • Most young mothers are faced with uncertainty when it comes to their income.
   • Informal work can give young women the flexibility they need.
   • The children are the biggest priority.
   • There are some obstacles to realise their dream.
2. Design sprint (1 week)
   • Ideation: we held an ideation day with the youth, which led to Mothers Unite concept: a referral system to vet clients and service providers, a daycare model to organize reliable and affordable childcare, and group saving with a more modest daily amount.
   • Prototyping:  In this phase, three daycare models were tested:  a time-sharing model, a fee-based model, and a full-time paid model.
   • User testing & Validation: At the end of the design sprint the final concept was validated on the last day through 5 final user testing sessions where the target groups got to express their thoughts on the concept.

Results

Mothers Unite, a cooperative led by young mothers, which ensures better quality and a more stable work environment for informal domestic services, such as childcare, cleaning and washing clothes.

Three important elements belong to this concept: a referral system to vet clients and service providers, a daycare model to organize reliable and affordable childcare, and group saving with a more modest daily amount.

Which allows the groups to self-organize and gather clients in their own community. The aim is that women can form a group with others that they already know and trust. This also gives space to start a trustworthy group saving project, with an affordable daily income.

This project was commissioned by Plan International and led by Thomas and Proportion Global consultants in Nairobi, Kenya. If you’ve enjoyed reading this case and want to dive deeper, we’d love to hear from you and we will connect you with relevant designers like Thomas, who worked on this project Contact Us