Doesn’t Every Woman Need A Dream Kitchen?

When I visited the Fadhili Women in Nairobi, I got to sit in on one of their weekly Tirzah Microenterprise Training sessions. Part of their routine each week is sharing a healthy meal together, and several of the women take turns preparing it for the group.

At some point during the day Tirzah’s local leader, Njambi, said “Come, let me show you the kitchen.”

So we walked around the side of the building and into the dirt alley behind it.

And there it was.

A few women were cooking over open fires, with large pots balanced over the flames. Their supplies were simple: buckets, basins, firewood, a handful of cooking tools. There was no roof overhead and no real cooking surface.

Njambi pointed toward deep ruts in the ground and explained that when it rains, this whole area floods.

I stood there taking it all in. (See my POV video I recorded here.)

And almost immediately, my American brain went to work.

These women need a kitchen.

Later that evening, I couldn’t wait to get a few minutes with Njambi and enthusiastically present my brilliant plan to her.

What if we raised the money to build a simple kitchen for the women?

Nothing elaborate. A roof to protect them from the rain. A counter or bench. Some basic cooking equipment.

I could already picture the campaign. I thought American women would connect with it immediately. Give me a list of what you need, I told her. Tell me what it would cost locally. We could raise the money and make this happen.

Njambi listened.

And listened.

She patiently let me finish my entire pitch.

Then she very kindly explained why my great idea was actually a very bad one.

The women we had spent the day with live in Kibera, one of Africa’s largest informal settlements. At home, they have access to very limited resources. If their training taught them to prepare healthy meals using a kitchen, equipment and facilities they don't actually have at home, then what exactly had we taught them?

The outdoor cooking wasn't an oversight.

It was a very intentional part of the training.

Njambi and her team were intentionally teaching the women how to prepare nutritious food using the tools and resources actually available to them.

My proposed solution wouldn't have made the program better.

It could have made the training less useful.

Meet the Fadhili Women

The women call themselves the Fadhili Women. Fadhili is a Swahili word meaning mercy.

Every woman in the group is living with HIV. Every one of them is also navigating severe poverty in Kibera.

Those are significant realities. But spend even a little time with these women and you quickly realize those challenges are not the whole story.

These women are building businesses. They are resilient. And capable. And have the strongest spirits I’ve ever seen. 

Through Tirzah International’s microenterprise program, they are learning how to launch and sustain small businesses that can create reliable income for their families.s

For some, the starting point is simply trying to earn enough money that day to put dinner on the table that night. A sustainable business begins to change that. It can mean being able to provide a more stable home, pay school fees and get children back into school. It means beginning to think beyond tonight's dinner toward what might be possible next month or next year.

But Njambi also knows that you can't separate a woman's business from the rest of her life.

These women can live full lives with HIV, but consistent access to medical care and medication is critical. And they need adequate nutrition to stay healthy and take that medication.

So the support surrounding their microenterprise training reflects that reality.

The women receive health insurance so they can access the medical care and medication they need. They share a healthy meal during their weekly training. And when the session ends, they leave carrying food parcels home to their families.

This is what I mean when I say Tirzah's work is locally led.

None of this was designed from thousands of miles away and handed to Njambi to implement.

Njambi knows these women. She knows their lives. And she knows what actually works here.

Which brings us back to my kitchen.

The Best Idea in the Room Wasn't Mine

That conversation with Njambi has stayed with me.

Because I really did think I had a great idea.

It would have been easy for me to come home, raise some money and feel wonderful about the kitchen we had built. And wouldn’t that have made a great story?!

But it would have been the wrong thing to do.

There is a reason Tirzah works through local women leaders.

Njambi doesn't occasionally visit this community. She is part of it. She knows what resources these women have access to, what barriers they face and what kinds of solutions will actually work in their daily lives.

She doesn't need me to arrive in Nairobi with better ideas.

She needs Tirzah to stand behind her.

That distinction matters enormously.

There is a natural temptation in international development to see something that looks broken to us and immediately ask, How can we fix this?

I felt it myself that day.

And the instinct isn't necessarily bad. It often comes from genuine compassion and generosity.

But good intentions don't automatically produce good solutions.

At Tirzah, we want to start with a different question.

We find women who are already leading in their communities. We listen to what they are seeing and what they know. And instead of asking, What can we do for you? we ask:

How can we support what you are already doing?

That's the Tirzah network.

What I Took Home From Nairobi

At the end of our time together, the Fadhili Women stood inside the small classroom holding the food parcels they would take home to their families.

And then they began to sing.

The room filled with music, movement, laughter and celebration.

I love that this is one of my final memories from that day.

Not a dirt alley.

Not an open fire.

Not poverty or HIV.

Women singing.

Women building businesses. Women feeding their families. Women learning new skills and creating new possibilities for their children.

And a local woman leader who understood exactly why they didn't need the kitchen I was so eager to give them.

I went to Nairobi thinking I had spotted something we could fix.

I came home reminded of something much more important.

The women closest to the challenges are the women who understand the solutions best.

Our job at Tirzah isn't to arrive with the answer. It's to find women like Njambi who are already leading, listen to them, and ask what they need to do their work even better.

That day, the answer wasn't a new kitchen.

It was recognizing that Tirzah’s local leaders don't need us to bring the answers. They need us to listen to theirs.