Amwe 2024: Bikers Unite to Build a Women's Peace Center
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Amwe Movement
amwe-"together" (pronounced amoy)
A word meaning together, shoulder by shoulder in Kii Tharaka,
Website: https://www.amwemovement.com/
Photos: Kelly Njenga (You capture such beauty.)
Amwe In The News
The Ride.
Join us on November 16th-17th for our Third Annual Amwe Peace Ride, as cycling teams from Kenya and California unite together (Amwe) in a moving prayer for womankind. Over fifty riders representing two countries and over eight tribes will set out on a 200-mile collective journey across our countries to connect, move, and raise funds for women's peace initiatives.
This year's ride is wildly exciting. First, because it involves you. Second, we are finally ready to raise funding to build an Amwe Village Empowerment Center! We have already paid off the first half of our 2.2-acre plot by the river in Tharaka, Kenya! Our 2024 ride is focused on two central goals identified in our August Community Meeting by the Makenna women's group:
How your donations will be used...
1) Building Village Empowerment Center
Pay the Balance on our Land Plot (4k)
Construct Fencing & Water tank (3K)
Build Village Empowerment Center (8k)
Pictured: Our Plot of 2.2 Acres along the river in Tharaka.
- Your sponsorship will help fund the purchase of land and the construction of the county’s first Amwe Women's Empowerment Center. This center will provide a hub for community therapy and entrepreneurship training, empowering thousands of native women in the Tharaka-Nithi region. Funded purely through biking and cross-cultural collaboration, the center will create a space for diverse communities to come together to learn from one another wisdom. The people of Tharaka have been waiting to teach you to dance and weave baskets! By offering both business training and emotional support, you’re creating a powerful foundation for women to thrive in their communities
2. Grow Women's Entrepreneurship Programs
Disburse 2nd Round of Seed Grants to existing businesses (3k)
Add 23 new woman Entrepreneurs to the program (3K)
Pictured: Lucy Dry Goods Business
- In 2023, we launched a women's entrepreneurship program that provided comprehensive training in business management, marketing, and financial literacy. The program offered $150 seed grants to help women start or expand their businesses. The Makenna women’s group has a leadership teams that preforms monthly progress and efficacy check ins.
- Thanks to your support, our women's entrepreneurship program successfully launched 23 new thriving women-owned small businesses in Tharaka in 2023.
- This summer, we had the privilege of visiting thriving home grocery stores, goat trading businesses, and village farm stands (pictured below). The women of Tharaka have spoken and they are ready to grow their businesses to the next level!
Join the Movement
Sponsor one of our Global Riders for $2-5 per mile!
The Kenya Ride
Tharaka to Meru -43 miles race
Sponsor $85 (at $2 per mile)
The California Ride
Big Sur Coastal Route- 60-100 miles
Sponsor $100-200 (at $1-2 per mile)
Costs in Eastern Kenya
Reference of how far a dollar can go.
For $60 a year, a family can purchase a full year of comprehensive Health Insurance for themselves and their family (NHIF). However, 80% of our partnering community cannot afford the $3.30 a month required to afford health care.
For $ 150, a woman can receive entrepreneurship training and a grant to start a small business.
For $ 65, a young woman can pay a year of her school fees.
For $7,000- Total cost to purchase land in Tharaka, Kenya.
2022-2023 Ride Funding Results
a little goes a long way.
For updates on how your donations & peddles made beautiful things happen over the past years, check out this list to see what magic your $$$ went into.
10,507 individuals were screened for Cancer in rural Kenyan communities in partnership with Naledi Medical Camps.
6,000+- Collective miles cycled by individuals joined together representing over eight defined tribes.
1000- Neem tree nursery planted & grow bags gardens exploding from doorsteps in Tharaka.
1000 households received a month of Emergency Food during the stage three drought in Samburu/Turkana.
23- Women's small business started via training and seed grants within the Tharaka community.
6-Amwe hosted six community-led training programs on table banking, community planning, sustenance gardening, and soap making.
35-Cancer-positive women are receiving emergency cancer treatment (chemo/surgery/meds) through NHIF health insurance coverage.
23-Households of women and children receive two years ' worth of primary health care provided via NHIF healthcare.
3-Cancer Support Groups sprouting up in Chukka, Tharaka, and Meru
1- Widow Support Group started in California inspired by Kenyan tradition.
196-Individuals joined in California inspired by the sense of community represented in Kenya.
1 -Latrine (community restroom) built.
Countless Random Miracles: Elders biking with us in the streets of Kenya in rainboots and bikes with no chains, volunteer doctors & gynecologists screening 3,000 people in one weekend for free. Donations of bread, gear, mentorship, handmade soups, fiddle tunes, and surprise cakes by people we have never met. Aunties, uncles, and grandmas pooling money for the good womankind. Biking in the dark, biking in the rain, biking farther than we knew we could. Lives were saved, skills learned, and unfamiliar people turned to family.
If there is a time for humankind to soften, unite, and take care of one another, it is now. May this project remind us of our inherent connectedness.
Amwe Partners (teachers & dear friends).
The MaKenna (Joy) Women's Group is in Tharaka, Kenya Amwe co-founder Robert (on the far left) was born in Tharaka, a village in this region. These women are his aunties, grandmamas, and elders.
Our primary partners and dear friends are the 23 influential Makenna Women's Group women. They belong to a pastoralist community of native Tharkan peoples located born & raised in rural Eastern Kenya. These vibrant women are master dancers, mothers, basket weavers, butchers, and belly laughers. Within them is an abundance of cultural wisdom. Due to patriarchal cultural factors, drought-affected environments, and governmental systems that disregard women and girls, this group of women actively struggles to get/grow enough food to feed their families. Affording health care and securing streams of regular, dependable income are also challenges. Despite it all, they meet weekly at 7 a.m. on this rock face, in these dashing pink dresses to table bank, collaborate, and find ways to support one another. Together, they do life as a family.
How We Send Funds (Efficacy)
We send the money directly to the certified CBO Naledi non-profit business account, and we employ responsible Tharakan community members to assist with project implementation and progress checks frequently. Amwe CA team members personally check up on project progress and efficacy during our regular visits to Kenya. Through the power of strategy and long-standing trusting community partnership, you can rest assured that your contribution goes into the hands and hearts it should.
How we Exchange (Sustainability)
The central goal of Amwe is to empower folks with culturally relevant life skills (through providing training) as a sustainable way to generate personal income to pay for their livelihoods and NHIF health care fees. We aim to support a group of incredible people exit hopeless systems with the goal of self-sustainability. We aim to decolonize the nature of NGO work by striving to create a partnership built on cross-cultural symbiosis. Our baseline belief is that humans have much to learn from one another. We see opportunities for our partners in California and Kenya to powerfully benefit from sharing treasured resources, whether monetary, cultural, native wisdom, resilience, or joy. We understand that individuals are the experts of their own culture. Thus, we work to make our agendas from a place of deep listening. We are doing the messy & imperfect work of exploring what can be created when we all bring the abundance of our community to the table.
Who we are (Heart)
Makenna Women's Group & Amwe Co-Founders Robert & Kenz.
Amwe movement is a cross-cultural organization that brings together women-identified folk and their allies to trek for peace. Locally, we band together to walk, bike, and backpack the land to restore our ancient and essential belonging to one another and the earth. Globally, our movement weaves together people across continents to explore peacemaking, solidarity, and allyship through outdoor movement. Our rides wanders, and roamings actively raise funds for women's peace initiatives in collaboration with our partnering community in Tharaka, Kenya. We believe humans have a lot to learn from one another.
Want to get involved? We are always looking for volunteers of all kinds!
Email us or send a message!
Organizer
AMWE Movement
Organizer
Los Osos, CA