Aid in Action
Opening of the Mariakani LifeWorks Project
'Doing Business, Not Charity' in a SafeTStop Community
Mariakani, Kenya
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Monday, June 11, 2007
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Suzanne Seitz
Women begin filling orders from a major regional hotel and resort chain. LifeWorks creates jobs that help empower vulnerable women in SafeTStop communities.
May 14, 2007 marked the opening of the Mariakani LifeWorks Home and Fashion Accessories Production Unit in the Mbati Rolling Mills Technical Institute, an enterprise designed to help empower vulnerable women and orphans in the SafeTStop community of Mariakani, Kenya. With orders for high quality tablecloths, place mats and napkins already received from a major international resort chain with nearly 30 high-end hotels and safari lodges across East and Central Africa , as well as interest from Ralph Lauren for exclusive home furnishings, the factory is off to a successful start.
LifeWorks is a unique partnership of Kenyan and regional business people addressing the economic vulnerability of at-risk groups along East and Central Africa’s transport corridors in a way that is beyond HIV/AIDS work place programs. Previously, work place programs had been the predominant response of the business community. The new LifeWorks program is catalyzing the Kenyan and regional business sectors to create jobs for high-risk women, older orphans and other vulnerable youth in SafeTStop communities. LifeWorks is managed by a Board of Directors representing leading regional companies, co-chaired by Bill Lay and David Mureithi, the Managing Directors of General Motors East Africa (GM) and Unilever Kenya Limited, respectively. Working with the board, regional business partners donate their expertise and material support to create jobs as an HIV and AIDS prevention and care strategy. The LifeWorks strategy is the first initiative of its kind anywhere.
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Suzanne Seitz
Beadwork will adorn upscale products for sale at tourist hotels and export markets in the United States and Europe.
LifeWorks’ Kenyan and regional business leaders partner with health professionals through a USAID-financed and Family Health International-implemented project called the “Regional Outreach for Addressing AIDS through Development Strategies Project” or ROADS Project. The ROADS Project implements HIV prevention and AIDS care and support services in 25 transport corridor communities called “SafeTStops” across nine countries in East and Central Africa.
LifeWorks and the ROADS Project also partner with U.S. Government programs funded by the President’s Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), including Kenya PEPFAR programs. In Kenya, there are SafeTStop communities with LifeWorks partnerships in Busia, Malaba and Mariakani. Through LifeWorks, Kenya and the region’s business leaders are thus leading the way for businesses to contribute to the defeat of AIDS. Mbati Rolling Mills and its Technical Institute as outstanding LifeWorks partners donated the physical space for the production unit and also generously supplied technical assistance in the design of the factory.
Equally important is the LifeWorks partnerships with transport corridor communities such as Mariakani. LifeWorks could not operate effectively without the full cooperation and dedication of community members, including administrative, political and religious leaders as well as ordinary citizens. These groups help to ensure LifeWorks is providing job opportunities to the most vulnerable and community groups will be eligible to invest in the companies through the purchase of share capital.
SafeTStop communities come together in partnerships called “cluster groups” to address HIV/AIDS with their own priorities and human resources. The Production Unit launched in Mariakani is an initiative of the Low Income Women’s Cluster called “Luganya” which appropriately means “to knit together” in Giriama.