Nawirisha was founded in 2022 out of a desire to see thriving children in urban low-income Kenya, where the early childhood care and education system is mainly anchored by women operating informal, grossly underserved, and unregulated childcare facilities.

It is an organization that works to transform the quality of early childhood care and education, in Kenya’s urban settlements, such as Mathare, by facilitating women’s informal childcare providers to organize, learn, access aggregated services for food, healthcare, and microfinance, while advocating and influencing childcare policy and regulation from the grassroots up.

This community-led effort reflects Africa’s informal early childhood care and education system, which is led by women and community leaders through home-based, church-based ‘collective’ initiatives that not only serve to nurture and protect children’s healthy development, but also instills cultural values and discipline, thereby ensuring early development of holistic individuals.

Indeed as the Igbo people noted, “It takes a village to raise a child”…Nawirisha patiently observes and keenly applies ‘A community-led Approach’ towards transforming early childhood care and education, rallying women caregivers, community elders, parents, and local government authorities to define the course of quality early childhood for their children.