Libere di vivere and Club Rotaract support Inua Mama A systemic empowerment project

In recent years, “empowerment” has become a catch-all word. A motivational caption, an aspirational moodboard, a feed-friendly aesthetic. But when you strip it of rhetoric and measure it over the long term, it takes on a different weight. That’s what happens with INUA MAMA, a project active since 2018 on the outskirts of Nairobi, in Ongata Rongai. In Swahili, it means “to lift up the woman.” Not to save, not to assist: to lift. To shift the center of gravity from a condition endured to a trajectory consciously designed. Behind the project is Giacomo Giacomo, an Italian organization operating between Italy and Kenya through structured interventions in the educational and social sectors. The approach is not emergency-driven but systemic: creating the conditions for autonomy to become sustainable over time.

Lifting does not mean saving

INUA MAMA was born in Ongata Rongai, within a context marked by stark economic disparity, informal labor, and the absence of structured welfare systems. Each year, around 85 women join a path of entrepreneurial training, financial education, and microcredit through VSLA groups (Village Savings and Loan Associations). This is not about “teaching survival,” but about building real economic skills. Low-investment micro-activities such as producing detergents and bleach, offering domestic cleaning services, or running small trade businesses, all capable of generating steady income within the local informal market.

Project results

The results show that the model works: 60% of participants achieve economic independence within the first year, starting up self-sustaining businesses ranging from the production of detergents and bleach to domestic cleaning services. A further 20% consolidate their stability within two years, gradually expanding their business, while 10% translate the path into an overall strengthening of the family unit, through stable savings, contributions to household expenses, and investment in their children's education. In a highly vulnerable context, around 80% of women therefore develop a concrete form of economic autonomy. And the real revolution lies not only in the increase in income, but in the choices that income finally makes possible.

Structural vulnerability, everyday resilience

These results do not exist in a vacuum. Between 2019 and 2020, the pandemic paralyzed the informal economy. In 2024, floods and political tensions slowed mobility and trade for weeks. Living in informal settlements means being exposed to continuous shocks,climatic, health-related, economic. Even the dropout rate, around 10% during the training year, reflects this instability: internal migration, family fragility, relocation to more affordable areas. The relevant data point is not the absence of challenges. It is the model’s ability to hold over time. The VSLA structure builds networks of mutual support, shared responsibility, and social capital. Not just microcredit, but community.

Connections that cross borders

The project is also supported by “Libere di Vivere,” a service initiative by the 21 Presidents of the Rotaract Clubs of District 2101. On March 6, 2026, at Bruttini in Naples, an event will allocate all proceeds to INUA MAMA. Not as an isolated act of generosity, but as a bridge between female leaders operating in different contexts who share the same idea of responsibility. It is not just fundraising. It is the construction of real connections, between those who experience empowerment as a word and those who practice it as a daily process.

Beyond the narrative

In a landscape where empowerment is often reduced to aesthetics, INUA MAMA offers an alternative: less storytelling, more continuity. Empowerment not as a label, but as social infrastructure. A process that transforms lives, relationships, and economic prospects. One that operates in the quiet discipline of saving, in the consistency of work, in the language of numbers. The contemporary reality that matters is not the polished one. It is the one that builds margins of choice. INUA MAMA is not a campaign. It is proof that responsibility, tools, and community can turn an overused word into concrete possibility.