Women Driving Community

Boda Girls mobilizes the power of sisterhood with women supporting women throughout a lifetime. To do this, we are 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.

Bod Girls Tree Planting

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.

71% of Kenyans live in rural areas that are often far from schools and hospitals. Due to limited resources, many rural women can’t afford the $1 fee to pay for transport to access existing health services, and girls may be vulnerable riding with male drivers.

Introducing Boda Girls!

Traditionally, Boda Boda driving has been a “male job” – one that pays up to ten times as much as the farm labor that women typically perform.

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.

A proud Boda Gilr standing by her bike
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.

Education

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

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

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!

Ambassador Dan and Gail

In 2023, USAID supported Matibabu’s Red Pride Menstrual Health Management Program, which expanded some aspects of the Boda Girls program to two additional sub-counties in Siaya. In 2024, Tiba received a grant from Harvard Business School Community Partners for a 4-month study on scaling Boda Girls. The HBS experts recommended that Tiba take the lead in scaling the Boda Girls Program by working with other hospitals and NGOs in Western Kenya similar to Matibabu.  Matibabu, our first implementation site, is recognized as our Boda Girls Innovation Lab, where we will test out new ideas that deepen the Boda Girls’ efforts in their communities.  For example, a pilot using electric bodas will begin in 2025.

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

 Leads Boda Girls Scaling in Kenya

Boda Girls Innovation lab at Matibabu Hospital

Our Partners:

Harvard Business School
FIGS
Micron
USAID
Engines for Change

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