SCF KARIMU

KARIMU

Region:

Tanzanía, Ayalagaya, Arri and Dabil Wards, Babati District, Manyara Region

Area of expertise:

Community Income Generation

Type:

Projects

Karimu envisions a world without poverty. Their mission is to find sustainable ways to enhance the well-being of rural villages in the developing world.

They engage deeply with local communities and government officials to set priorities for precise projects that address the interrelated challenges of poor health and sanitation, meager income and insufficient education, and lack of access to financial services that limit the well-being and opportunities for the poor.

Karimu uses an Integrated Approach: it recognizes that poverty is a complex problem that requires an active and integrated approach that directly involves the poor in dialogue and participation, requiring their investment alongside local communities and local governments to play an active role in sustainably tackling three fundamental challenges:

Poor health and sanitation
Meager income and insufficient education
Lack of access to financial services

Learn more

Phase 1: Ayalagaya and Arri (2021-2024)

The support that SCF brought to Karimu aimed to increase the financial security of rural and impoverished community members of Ayalagaya and Arri wards, Tanzania. Karimu worked on a comprehensive income generation strategy building conditions to:

Provide proven entrepreneurship skills using Street Business School Methodology
Provide access to capital via savings groups in a sustainable manner
Provide specific income opportunities via targeted farming and livestock projects – that will support the majority of farming households in Ayalagaya (86.55%) and Arri

This project represented for Karimu a relevant step in the development of these rural communities, as it focused on increasing income while previous actions had been primarily focused on improving education and health & water access. The results have been remarkable: in Ayalagaya, only 4.9% of households now remain classified as “poorest of the poor,” with $102,021 in loans provided with zero late payments, and entrepreneurship graduates increasing their income by an average of 165% in the first year. The data from Arri confirms these findings, validating that Karimu’s methodology works consistently.

Phase 2: Scaling and validation through Dabil (2025-2027)

Building on this proven success, SCF is now supporting Karimu to achieve three critical objectives:

Prove replicability in a new area: Expanding the full income generation model to Dabil ward, where Karimu is completely unknown, to demonstrate the methodology works independently of prior relationships or awareness.
Document the complete methodology: Thoroughly capturing the early implementation stages in Dabil – crucial steps that were not well-recorded when work began in Ayalagaya and Arri – to create a replicable blueprint.
Validate impact with external assessment: Conducting independent impact evaluations and developing a comprehensive Theory of Change using established poverty measurement methodologies, providing concrete evidence of the model’s effectiveness.

This three-year program will continue scaling financial services, entrepreneurship training, and income projects across all three wards, with the goal of further reducing extreme poverty in Ayalagaya and Arri while establishing the model’s effectiveness in Dabil. Upon completion, Karimu will have a fully documented, externally validated, and applicable and replicable poverty elimination model ready to be shared with NGOs worldwide.