LivelyHoods - Unlocking Entrepreneurial Potential

Jon Custer writing in CIPE:

(Photo: Think Africa Press.)

The adjective “unskilled,” like many words favored by economists, can be highly misleading. Trying to survive on the streets in a Kenyan slum, for example, takes a lot of skills — just not ones that are easy for the market to value and reward.

Take Alex Govinda, for example: as a homeless youth in Kwangware, on the outskirts of Nairobi, he had to hustle every day just make enough money to eat, collecting and selling scraps — and sometimes stealing shoes or mobile phones, too. Now he is an expert salesperson, using his skills to hawk high-quality goods to his neighbors and earning a decent living in the process, thanks to a unique arrangement set up by LivelyHoods.

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