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Clean Water Access
Installation of household systems such as rainwater harvesting and drip irrigation for widow households.
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Building an Africa where widows are connected, confident, and competent to lead positive social change in their households and communities.
Core Approach
We use capacity development and strengthening as our core approach across leadership, livelihoods, health, justice, and youth. As we partner with widows, we learn from each other and co-create meaningful ways for widows to feel connected, confident, and competent. Our unit of implementation is the leadership circle, a widow-to-widow support group.
What This Means in Practice
Programs
Our programs strengthen widows as leaders, entrepreneurs, and community changemakers.
Nyanam has organized 5,100 widows into 164 leadership circles, with each group consisting of 15 to 40 widows.
These circles enable women to encourage and support one another emotionally, spiritually, and financially.
Leadership circles improve emotional and psychosocial well-being while creating a practical system for collective empowerment and skills development.
Each circle implements three activities during weekly or bi-weekly meetings, including Voice of Change study and leadership development practices for social action.
Main Voice of Change modules in leadership include:
Why This Matters
Why leadership?
Widows already demonstrate strength, wisdom, and leadership as single mothers in their households.
We focus on strengthening this existing leadership capacity for the benefit of widows, their households, and their communities.
We also work with widows to challenge socio-cultural constraints, including gender norms and harmful practices that limit widows from exercising their full leadership potential.
Enabling Services
Practical support that helps widows convert training and solidarity into measurable progress.
Installation of household systems such as rainwater harvesting and drip irrigation for widow households.
Collaborations to build safe and secure homes for vulnerable widows.
Financial grants to leadership circles to strengthen widows' table banking ventures.
Legal fee support to advance land and property justice cases.
Regular clinics with paralegals and pro bono lawyers supporting land, property, and civil justice matters.
Provision of seeds, toolkits, irrigation pumps, and multi-storey garden resources for sustainable production.
These services are designed to reduce immediate barriers and strengthen widows' long-term resilience.
Economic Transformation
Led and managed by widows, the SACCO strengthens financial empowerment, sustainability, and livelihood outcomes across leadership circles.
An Africa where widows are self-sustained.
To empower widows in Africa through capacity strengthening, access to resources, and community-led initiatives that foster economic resilience and holistic development.
Foster disciplined savings among widows in leadership circles.
Provide accessible credit facilities for widow members.
Enable income-generating activities and social action projects.
Strengthen capabilities in asset management and entrepreneurship while promoting climate-resilient, market-driven collective ventures.
Through SACCO, widows build stronger financial agency and move from short-term survival to long-term self-sustainability.
June 23 Every Year
International Widows Day is observed annually on June 23, as recognized by the United Nations, to address the poverty and injustice faced by millions of widows and their dependents.
Since 2019, Nyanam Widows Rising has hosted annual International Widows Day celebrations in Kenya with widows and their families.
In 2020, although COVID-19 reduced the size of the celebration, it remained impactful. We raised over $3,000 through GoFundMe to provide more than 115 COVID-19 response kits to widows and their children.
In 2021, we were not able to mark the day due to financial constraints.
Together, we can build communities where widows lead, thrive, and drive lasting social change.