Creating Microenterprises in One of the World's Most Challenging Places
JA Company Program currently reaches about 6,000 Kenyan youth annually.
Michael is an alumnus of JA Company
Program®, which currently reaches about
6,000 Kenyan youth annually. He is the only
survivor among his 23 classmates, who have
died from disease or violence in the Kibera
slum in Nairobi.
Kibera has no sewage systems, little running
water and is densely populated. There are
approximately one million inhabitants living in a
space equivalent to less than one square mile.
In places like Kibera, more than 80 percent of
young people do not attend school after
primary school as they cannot afford the
tuition for secondary school. As a result,
there is a huge population of out-of-school
young people who are poor, with few
prospects and limited options.
Michael's company makes wristbands, which
are created by finding discarded plastic
bottles, cutting them into strips and wrapping
them in cloth. The cloth is embroidered
with slogans such as "Ghetto Potential,"
"Manchester United" (for the English football
club) and other customized messages.
Typically, at the end of the JA Company
Program experience, the students' business
enterprise is liquidated. However, Michael
kept his company 
going. In fact, Michael and
his colleagues have created a microenterprise
that provides jobs for approximately 25
young people in Kibera. Among them is a
14-year-old girl, who can eloquently explain
the working capital requirements for the
Company. She has two young children and
has not gone to school beyond the
fourth grade.
Currently, JA is connecting microfinanciers
to JA Company Program students in
places like the Nairobi slums. The students
infuse the capital into their businesses and
repay the loans with interest, providing a
simple metric with which to measure Junior
Achievement's impact in addition to sales,
jobs and profitability.
JA Company Program is not just a learning
experience for these young people. It is a
living experience—it has given them the
tools and confidence to eke out a living in a
dangerous and difficult environment