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STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT
| SOCIETY |
REGULATORS | SHAREHOLDERS | MEDIA | CUSTOMERS | BUSINESS PARTNERS | EMPLOYEES |
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equipping of a network of 55 health facilities
throughout the County and improving the
patient referral system between the facilities.
The patient referral system is centred around
a new Ambulance Command Centre, which
uses ride-hailing technology to orchestrate a
fleet of ambulances, 4x4 vehicles and tricycles
to transport patients to the services they
need. As well as training and upskilling health
workers initially, the project also includes the
deployment of mobile phone-based e-learning
solutions to ensure continuous learning among
health workers going forward. Creating
awareness and mobilising local communities
has also been a feature of the project,
especially encouraging men to support
clinic-based maternal and child care services
for mothers and their babies. The project will
improve the maternal and child health care for
over 224,000 people in Samburu County.
Economic Empowerment
Unemployment is considered a leading
economic policy challenge in Kenya. At
the forefront of this challenge lies the high
unemployment rate among young people,
which is estimated by the World Bank Group to
be double the national level of unemployment
and around 17.3%; hence, most of the
unemployed people disproportionately stem
from the youth segment of the population
and belong to the bottom 40 percent of the
income distribution. Many of these young
people could lift themselves out of poverty
through training in entrepreneurship education,
as well as support to establish micro and small-
scale enterprises; however, opportunities for
entrepreneurial training remain few and far
between and access to funding for micro and
small-scale enterprises remains minimal.
A response to this challenge, the Safaricom
Foundation Micro-Loan Fund is a fund that
provides loans to financially marginalised
and excluded groups in 13 Counties across
Kenya. The Fund provides interest-free loans of
up to KES 200,000 with repayment periods of
between three and 24 months. The loans are
available to people aged 18 years and older.
To date, KES 23,393,000 has been loaned to
create 5,937 jobs in a wide variety of industries,
including farming, transport, retail, catering,
horticulture and events management. There
is an extensive training period before the
loans are issued and ongoing support for the
businesses. The loans have increased incomes,
created jobs and transformed lives.
SDG 8
LOOKING AHEAD
FY18 Goals
y
Developing a new 3-year strategy
for the Safaricom Foundation.
y
Leveraging off partnerships to build
an integrated SDGs ecosystem
with our partners across the
country.
y
Supporting the
B-Team Africa
to
establish structures, develop a
road map and recruit membership
from across the continent.
y
Deepening the embedding of
Sustainability and the SDGs among
our dealers and suppliers. We have
identified SDGs 8, 10 and 12 as
the most material for our dealers
and plan to work on a pilot with
five of our biggest dealers in terms
of developing commitments and
action plans based on these three
goals.
SDG 17