Women Driving Community
Boda Girls mobilizes the power of sisterhood to support women throughout a lifetime. We’re creating a Boda Boda (motorcycle) taxi revolution, by implementing the first female driver entrepreneurship program to connect women and girls to opportunities in education, health, and business.
A Future Toward Prosperity and Health
We know that female empowerment drives a community’s health. Boda Girls wants to inspire and enable women to reach their fullest potential. Today in Rural Kenya, thousands of women lack access to education, critical health care services, and work opportunities outside traditional, low-wage women’s work.
This results in …
- High rates of preventable maternal and cervical cancer deaths
- Young girls missing school leading to dropouts, early pregnancies and financial dependency
- A lack of skills mentoring and employment opportunities
- A lack of hope for a vibrant future
The missing link? Transportation.
Introducing Boda Girls!
Through the Boda Girls program, women can now learn to drive, build their taxi business and provide safe and free transportation for women to critical services.
Our Boda Girls Equity Loans also allows them to pay off their motorcycles and fully own their businesses.
An empowered woman is a thriving community
The best part is, Boda Girls are so much more than just Boda taxi drivers; they are health advocates and community leaders! We enable them through a mastery of various competencies to support women of all ages, throughout critical times of their life.
School Girls
Boda Girls adopt schools and promote high school graduation.
They teach 8th-grade girls menstrual health, and distribute sustainable menstrual kits so they don’t have to miss school during their cycle.
They also facilitate after school Entrepreneurial Clubs to equip girls with the necessary tools to earn money, in order to put themselves through high school, and even college.
Motherhood
Few rural women can access ultrasounds and many don’t attend maternal clinics due to lack of transport.
Boda Girls offer free rides to the hospital for clinics and bring portable ultrasounds to women and help plan for any complications.
Boda Girls visit the homes after the babies are born to do a wellness check and they plant a nutritious kitchen garden and dedicate an avocado tree to the child.
That tree will someday provide more than the family needs and the mother can sell food to generate income for herself. Boda Girls support a woman before, during and after her pregnancy, giving her and her family peace of mind.
Womanhood
Death from cervical cancer is high in rural Kenya, yet it is a preventable and easily treatable disease if caught early. Boda Girls provides free self-testing kits and/or free transport to screenings and treatment.
Boda Girls also support widows with facilitated entrepreneurship classes and opportunities for micro lending to develop their business.
Whether it’s a free ride, information, introductions, or friendship, Boda Girls become a go-to for women in the community for connections, inspiration, and opportunity.
Annual Impact Goals
Trained Boda Girls are operating in Siaya County
Girls at 84 schools learned about reproductive health and received free sustainable menstrual kits
Free rides for women to the hospital for family planning, prenatal, and cancer screening services
%
Increase in hospital deliveries & 100% increase in Maternal Clinics
Women develop profitable businesses and mentor others to do the same
The biggest impact is that thousands of women and girls will be inspired to follow their dreams, and will have the tools to do so!
In 2023, USAID supported Boda Girls to expand to two additional sub counties in Siaya. Tiba received a grant from Harvard Business School Community Partners for a 4-month study on scaling Boda Girls. Tiba is actively working to scale the Boda Girls program in partnership with Kenyan NGOs in the LREB region. A new pilot program for electric motorcycles is planned for the near future. For more information email Diane Dodge, Tiba Executive Director.
Become a Champion for female empowerment.
By contributing to the Boda Girls initiative, you’re investing in the lives of women and girls, and ultimately, in community transformation. Magnify your impact by becoming a Boda Girls Champion, and give a monthly gift of any amount to support the growth of Boda Girls!
*We are proud to pledge that 100% of donations go to supporting Boda Girls in Kenya
Boda Girls is a program of Tiba and Matibabu Foundations
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