NAIROBI, Kenya--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Leila Janah Foundation (LJF), a non-profit organization supporting entrepreneurs in East Africa, today announced the winner of its second annual Growth Fund grant: Mukuru Talent Share, an organization training marginalized individuals in Nairobi’s Mukuru slum to craft high-quality leather association footballs from locally-sourced materials. The Growth Fund offers former winners of the LJF’s Give Work Challenge (GWC) the opportunity to raise additional funding to continue growing and meeting major business milestones. Mukuru Talent will receive $10,000 in additional grant funding as well as startup accelerator training and mentorship from the LJF.
The LJF launched the Growth Fund program in 2022 as a follow-on to its signature GWC, which offers businesses grants and mentorship. After at least one year following a GWC win, companies are eligible to apply for the Growth Fund, provided that their enterprises have demonstrated growth, consistency and potential for further expansion. The 2023 group of applicants was composed of 100% youth-owned businesses, with 38% of the ventures being women-led.
“Kenya is well on its way to meeting its goals laid out in its Vision 2030 plan, and companies like Mukuru Talent are playing a critical role in ensuring that the economic growth spreads to people of all income levels. The Growth Fund grant provides Mukuru Talent with a firm foundation to continue growing, thriving and causing a ripple effect in their home community,” said Liliosa Mbirimi, Program Director at the Leila Janah Foundation. “We look forward to working more closely with them in this critical phase of growth.”
Mukuru Talent Share, a woman-led organization, was founded to meet the needs of soccer players unable to find high-quality, long-lasting and most importantly, affordable footballs in the market. The company gives marginalized individuals the skills to hand-craft high-quality Mukuru Kicks balls that can be used on multiple kinds of surfaces without sacrificing durability. They are already in use by a number of organizations, including both sports academies and schools. With the funding, Mukuru Talent intends to scale its operations to reach more of the overall African market, where association football is the most popular sport and the size of the sporting goods market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 9.16% through 2027.
“Winning the Give Work Challenge changed the path of Mukuru Talent completely, allowing us to complete our workshop and lower production costs significantly. Winning the Growth Fund grant now gives us the opportunity to train more people in Mukuru and bring better equipment to football players all over Nairobi, Kenya and eventually more countries in Africa,” said Florence Awuor, founder of Mukuru Talent Share. “I am honored to be continuing our relationship with the LJF and continuing to make a difference in empowering marginalized people in our community.”
The one-round application process evaluates applicants on several key factors, including milestones hit since winning the GWC, revenues and expenditures, the UN Sustainable Development Goals the business is solving for, target beneficiaries of the project, key milestones for the next year and testimonials. All applicants receive feedback on their application regardless of whether or not they win.
Last year’s winners were Letasi Oils, a Ugandan women-led beauty brand giving work to low-income women and girls while creating healthy healing balms for skin and hair care, and Seeds of Hope, a Kenyan company providing pure, natural and organic honey through Fair Trade practices and empowering young women to generate their own income.
The LJF is the primary shareholder of Sama, the leader in providing data annotation solutions that power the AI models of the future. Both entities take their mission from Leila Janah, who founded Sama in 2008 on the belief that talent is equally distributed, but opportunity is not. In its early stages, Sama received a major boost from a grant and has since helped more than 65,000 people lift themselves out of poverty. Both the GWC and Growth Fund programs aim to give that same boost to women and youth in East Africa.
“When women and youth succeed, the entire community succeeds, and. The Growth Fund helps ensure that critical companies like Mukuru Talent can continue their success. It is also helping build a stronger entrepreneurial ecosystem in both Kenya and Uganda,” said Wendy Gonzalez, CEO of Sama and a member of the Board of Directors of the Leila Janah Foundation. “Congratulations to Mukuru Talent and the team. I cannot wait to see what they do next!”
For more information on the GWC and Growth Fund, please visit the LJF’s website. To learn more about the LJF’s mission, subscribe to its newsletter, subscribe to the GWC YouTube channel or follow the LJF on LinkedIn.
About the Leila Janah Foundation
The Leila Janah Foundation, founded in 2019, is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to furthering the mission of its namesake, Leila Janah: supporting entrepreneurs in Kenya and Uganda by giving meaningful work and creating equal opportunities for women and youth in low-income communities, consequently alleviating global poverty. Its signature initiative is the Give Work Challenge, which is run twice a year (once for established businesses, and once for new businesses). It is the primary shareholder of Sama. For more information, visit www.leilajanahfoundation.org.
About Sama
Sama is a global leader in data annotation solutions for computer vision that power AI and machine learning models. Our solutions minimize the risk of model failure and lower the total cost of ownership through an enterprise ready ML-powered platform and SamaIQ™, actionable data insights uncovered by proprietary algorithms and a highly skilled on-staff team of over 5,000 data experts. 25% of Fortune 50 companies, including GM, Ford, Microsoft, and Google, trust Sama to help deliver industry-leading ML models.
Driven by a mission to expand opportunities for underserved individuals through the digital economy, Sama is a certified B-Corp and has helped more than 65,000 people lift themselves out of poverty. An MIT-led Randomized Controlled Trial has validated its training and employment program. For more information, visit www.sama.com.
