Kamacharia Location·
Murang'a, Central Kenya·
Established 2008
We put an income in the hands of rural women in Kamacharia — and the skills to keep it growing. A member receives a dairy heifer or a pig-rearing start-up, owns the animals outright, and passes the gift on to the next woman.
The dairy programme
A heifer arrives, and it belongs to a member from that day. She learns to feed it properly — the chopped fodder above is the daily work of it — and once the cow is in milk she has an income that comes every morning.
When the heifer calves, the first heifer calf goes to the next woman on the list.
Our mission
Davila-Mwihoko exists to put an income in the hands of rural women. We place a dairy heifer with a member, or set her up in pig rearing, and the animals are hers — the milk money is hers, the herd is hers, and no one can take the job away.
We supply the animal and the start-up costs, the training to keep it healthy and productive, and the business skills to reinvest and grow. Then the gift moves: when her heifer calves, the first heifer calf goes to the next woman on the list. A woman who earns decides — on food, on school fees, on what comes next. Multiply that across a village and the whole community's standard of living rises.
Our work
Kamune is a small village in Murang'a whose families live on subsistence farming. Most hold shambas of under two acres, worked by the women alongside their children. The work is constant and almost none of it earns money.
A woman here does not need to be taught to work. What she needs is an asset that pays her for the work she is already doing. We run two, and a member can hold either.
Programme one · the larger
A member receives an in-calf heifer, along with training in feeding, housing and animal health. Once the cow is in milk she sells daily to her neighbours — a small, steady, local income that arrives every morning rather than once every six months. The manure goes onto her shamba, so her food crop improves at the same time.
The heifer is hers outright. What she owes is the first heifer calf.
Programme two · since 2008
A member is guided through building and stocking her own pigsty and trained in small-scale pig farming. Pigs suit a small plot, return a saleable animal in about six months, and have a standing buyer: mature pigs go to Farmer's Choice. Earnings from the communal herd fund the next round of farmers and competitive scholarships for members' children in secondary school and college.
A larger payment, less often — good for school fees and lump-sum costs.
The cow, or the sty and the stock, belong to the member outright — not a share in someone else's, and not a job she can be let go from.
Feeding, housing, and spotting the early signs of illness, because a sick animal is lost earnings. We also help members plan a kitchen garden, which cuts what the household has to buy.
Every member is also a donor. She passes on the first heifer calf, or reinvests her pig proceeds into the next cycle — so the money we raise once keeps buying results long after it is spent.
How it multiplies
Both programmes are built to outlive the money that started them. One passes on an animal; the other passes on the proceeds. Either way a single gift keeps buying results after it has been spent.
The dairy chain
An in-calf heifer goes to a selected member, with training in feeding, housing and animal health.
Once the cow is in milk she sells daily to her neighbours. Manure goes onto her shamba.
The calf goes to the next woman on the list. The cow, and every calf after, stay with her.
and the next woman begins at step one
The pig cascade
We take on three women per cycle. We build the sty, buy the first five piglets, cover feed and medicine to maturity, and help sell into Farmer's Choice. The member provides the land and all the labour. Support then tapers — and once she is established, her cycle funds the next three.
Step 3 · Year two
Step 2 · Months 6–12
Step 1 · Months 0–6
Where we are
Entirely funded by personal donations from overseas supporters and the group's own directors. Capital invested in the pig herd alone has passed one million Kenya shillings.
The pigsty is built and the first two pregnant sows arrive.
Both mothers farrow. Fifteen piglets.
The litter matures. Thirteen pigs are delivered to Farmer's Choice; two are kept back to become mothers themselves.
Twenty-three piglets born.
Four sows, one boar, and twenty-nine pigs at varying stages of growth.
The dairy programme begins. The first in-calf heifer is placed with a member.
The first heifer calf is passed on, and the chain starts.
What it costs
Our largest single line, and the one that decides how many women we can take on in a year. One heifer is one household's income, permanently.
Funded by sponsorship, one animal at a timeThe pig herd's biggest cost and the one most exposed to the market. A bad month for feed prices is a bad month for the whole project.
Working on: bulk buying and on-farm feedTap water is expensive and unreliable, and the valley is a long climb with a full jerrycan. Dairy cattle drink a great deal.
Solved at the pigsty: we dug our own water holeWho we are
Founder
A research scientist at Howard University in Washington, D.C., and the origin of the idea that a small herd, properly run, could change a village's prospects.
Co-founder
A retired banker from Standard Chartered Bank Kenya, Nairobi. Kamacharia is home; she selects and mentors the members and runs the project on the ground.
Consultant paediatrician at Kenyatta National Hospital and lecturer in the University of Nairobi's Faculty of Medicine, with consulting practice at Nairobi Hospital, Aga Khan and Gertrude's Garden Children's Hospital. Long involved in community and charity work.
An educationist who served for decades as headteacher of Loreto Kiambu Secondary School, known for opening the school's doors to children who could not otherwise afford to attend. A qualified counsellor.
A chartered accountant, formerly of Unga Group Ltd and now self-employed. Works widely on community development, particularly in helping children in need get to school.
Members are drawn from the villages around Kamacharia Location. We look for women who have already shown initiative in trying to lift their households — market vending, weaving and selling baskets, working as labourers on other people's farms. What a member must bring is a piece of land for the sty and her own labour. Our aim is to widen the group as funds allow, and in time to establish chains of trained pig farmers in other parts of the country.
Support us
Every shilling so far has come from individuals. A gift buys a heifer, builds a pigsty, stocks a starter litter of five, or keeps a scholarship going for a member's child — and because members pass the gift on, it does not stop at the first woman.
We are a community self-help group registered in Kenya. If you need documentation for your own records — a receipt, or confirmation of how a gift was spent — ask and we will provide it.