The Gawa Movement — How Room Members Caroline Armstong and Kashfi Mahmud are tackling food distribution for just 60¢ents a meal
Two cups of rice, one apple, a single banana or a few pieces of cheap candy — each of these items is all you can get with 60 US cents; or so we thought. This week we caught up with Room members Caroline Armstrong, a seasoned 20+ year financial services professional and Kashfi Mahmud, a former NASA employee. They shared how, in collaboration with two other partners (Kavita Doshi and Elizabeth Njoroge), they are delivering nutritionally certified meals to vulnerable people in Nairobi, Kenya for just 60 US cents (60 Kenya shillings) a meal! Incredibly it not only covers the meal but everything from the suppliers, the central kitchen, the packaging and distribution until it is hand-delivered to the end beneficiaries which include the disabled, elderly and sick.
The initiative is aptly named Gawa which means “share” in Kiswahili. The Gawa Movement as Caroline and Kashfi emphatically described it, launched on 15 July 2020, and has since then delivered an incredible 15,000 meals, received support from over 190 Donors, signed on a new key donor partner for fresh fruit and vegetables, and raised $12,020 — all in two weeks!
Their story is also one of how a shared sense of purpose and commitment to community brings together people from different walks of life, and how even unlikelier circumstances sparked their connection. Here’s what they had to share with us.
Before we go into the details of the amazing work you’re doing, please tell us a bit more about yourselves.
Caroline
“At the age of 19, fresh out of university, I went into banking and worked for a few international financial institutions including Citibank and Barclays. I started as an intern and worked hard to rise through the ranks, managing teams from 4 to 430 people before getting into the C-suite” She became a group director at HF Group which had grown from a mortgage finance institution into a group entity that includes a commercial bank, a property development arm, an insurance agency and even a foundation. It was clear that she was already on a path towards the top of the corporate ladder, but she still felt she needed to have a career that left a real impact on people. So after 20+ years in the corporate world, she decided to take a break in search of that purpose so as to re-evaluate her next career chapter.
“I was grateful for my time in financial services, how it enabled me to grow and what it enabled me to achieve, but it was no longer for me. I remember people saying, ‘but you’ve gone so far in your career, you’re almost at the end, to just walk away’. In reality, I’m only halfway there. I wanted my next chapter to be meaningful and to do things I enjoy the most while making a difference. I remember thinking, I cannot go to one more strategy session where it starts by putting the profit number on a beautiful whiteboard and using the session to work backwards. And any impacts are a bonus.”
Caroline, who also serves on a few boards including Kenya Airways and Kenya’s National Housing Corporation, decided to embark on a journey that was very much like the proverbial year of yes. She accepted board roles, job shadowed her friends with a packed lunch just like an intern and explored new opportunities which eventually led to Gawa. A new chapter meant not being afraid to start again.
Kashfi has a unique culturally diverse background. Ethnically, she is Bangladeshi, but grew up in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf war and emigrated to Canada. She has had a rather dynamic career starting in aerospace with none other than NASA! “The company that I worked for was the subcontractor for the Canadian space agency but eventually ran out of money. So NASA had to bail them out. It was an amazing space (no pun intended) to start my career. It was around the time that they were doing the rescue mission for the Hubble telescope.” Kashfi continues “One of my mentors at work shared how he was moving on to a top-secret project, which I thought was really interesting. However, he said something that struck me. During a confidential project he worked on for the Canadian arm, he couldn’t tell if it was summer, winter, day or night because he had to work from a sealed off windowless room in the middle of the building due to the top-secret nature of the work. He wasn’t sure about doing that for a few more years, even though the work was interesting and he shared those concerns with me. That was a huge moment for me because I was quite young and he was ahead.” Kashfi realised that if this was what ‘the top’ looked like, in a few years, she would end up toiling away in a windowless room as a reward for her hard work.
She branched out and decided to start an NGO with a group of friends called the Monayr Asha Aid (MAA) Foundation, located in urban slums in Bangladesh to enrol young migrant worker children in schools. After her early forays, she realised she wanted more knowledge about the space. Through her engineering background and research, she discovered the corrupt water delivery systems in Bangladesh kept the children sick often; this meant that while education was a challenge even kids who were enrolled in school would miss out due to illness. It held her to do a masters in Spain, writing her thesis in water delivery and met her husband soon after. She started work with a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) called NEPAD in South Africa, before moving to Kenya to work with praekelt — a mobile tech company leading their non-profit arm in East Africa. She ultimately decided to retrain and focus on coaching due to her passion for working with people before Gawa came along.
You both have incredible stories. How did you both meet?
Kashfi
“I met Caroline because our kids went to the same school. My son is a year younger than her daughter. He wanted to do ballet, but he was the only little boy in the recitals. He was intimidated by all these girls who were all taller than him and were much more coordinated. Caroline’s daughter stepped up, took his hand and told him “you sit next to me” and watched out for him ever since. I went down for the recital and found out about this and remembered thinking, I want to know who her parents are and that’s how we met!”
Caroline
“ I think the moment for me when I realised we would get along was at a parent get-together. There are two types of networkers — for the first group, it’s all about them, and for the second they don’t even realise they’re doing it and genuinely enjoy connecting people. Kashfi is the second. I never really explored beyond the social element until we had the inaugural Room dinner. I saw a new Kashfi and liked it. So it all started as being kindergarten mums”
Kashfi
“I also don’t think it’s a coincidence that we’re both in The Room because if you listen to our stories, a common theme is about living a life with purpose which is much more than monetary value or status. It’s about a purpose that affects not only an individual but society in a much larger way.”
It was truly meant to be, which leads me to my next question. What led both of you to collaborate on Gawa?
A mutual connection
Caroline
“She’ll be humble about this, but it was her brainchild, (Kashfi), So I’ll let her go first.”
Kashfi
“It started with the third person we talked about earlier — Elizabeth, an incredible woman who has run this project called ghetto classics for the last ten years. I’ve always been inspired by her work and did a few charity drives with her. One day, she messaged me to go to Korogocho with her to observe a session with some vocal youth in that community that a few ministers had asked her to facilitate.” Kashfi continues “Something I don’t think people realise is that the youth are doing their utmost best in their limited capacity to make something happen in their community.” She mentioned that they wanted to set up a community kitchen but were turned down by the ministers because of COVID. How the idea stuck with her, and she shared it with her husband (Kameel, also a Room member ) who introduced her to the owner of Art Caffe, a popular chain of cafes in Nairobi whose kitchens were closed due to the pandemic. They were open to discussing an opportunity which led to a first meeting that involved her, Elizabeth and Caroline.
Caroline
“ I could see the negative impact that COVID had on the community, and I wanted to do something without having buckets of money to throw at the problem. I knew I had to do something and as that desire grew stronger, I decided to call somebody in that space and reached out to Liz (Elizabeth). I told her that I wanted to volunteer my time, experience and skills in something that helped and I felt like she’d be the key. She asked if I wanted to go to a meeting the next day with her and Kashfi — and that was it. That was the beginning. I’m so glad I made that phone call”
That is serendipity, and I love how that connection evolved most naturally. How did things take off from that meeting and what kind of impact Gawa does aim to achieve?
Kashfi
“It started as a Whatsapp group, very aptly named Viability Check. We had questions on whether it made sense to move forward and in trying to answer them — the fourth person got involved (Kavita). She is someone who has her feet heavily on the ground and knows what’s happening because she is a quite well connected but extremely humble person. I feel extremely privileged to be working with everyone on the team; it has been an incredible experience.”
The Launch of Gawa
“We launched Gawa on July 15; it was the first day we did a whole distribution of 2,500 meals. A nutritionist inspected each meal; she was another friend that I met through the perils of motherhood, who offered her services for free.” Kashfi continues “ We delivered 2,500 meals. We were able to get the cost down to 60 shillings, and we’re hoping to get it reduced even further as we grow our different partnerships. It covers the actual supplies, cooking, packaging and distributing.”
Kashfi also talked about the ‘last mile distribution’ which is done by the youth who help deliver crates of food to beneficiaries in areas that perhaps even the UN and World Food Programme can not reliably reach. “They deliver the food to the people who need it the most and know are in those areas.
That is incredible that it’s just 60 shillings. I did not know that it was for the entire end to end process.
Caroline
“ We’ve cracked it end to end — from the supplier to the end beneficiary. People would think 60 shillings is just the cost of one piece, but no it’s all the way into the beneficiary’s hands.”
Kashfi
“As I mentioned, we want to get that number even lower. The distribution is happening across Nairobi, in areas like Baba Dogo, which is in the east of the city and even in the dumpsites. We are covering a lot of ground, with each area having different challenges attached to it.”
The long term impact
Caroline and Kashfi shared that Gawa is planning a sustainability program with three parts for the longer term. A community kitchen program which is being birthed, a community revival program and urban farming.
Community Revival — Doing something to get something.
“For the community revival program, you will notice from our pictures that the food is in a plastic container. The first step is recollecting those plastic containers, we looked at reuse, but right now we’re recycling directly. The idea is to get homeless people and the street kids to care about their community by giving them sacks to collect garbage from the environment and presenting that sack of garbage for a meal.” The intention is to instil ownership of their own community and restoration through dignified work for the homeless populace. They also want to work with waste management programs to find out how to reuse or recycle the waste and explore income generation to be used in beautification programs which have already been done in a few slums to increase security as well.
Urban farming
As a second part to the sustainability program is urban farming. Gawa is trying to connect to farmer networks to use the recycled plastic containers as seedbeds, and potentially grow microgreens to become a source of income and potential nutrients they can use. There are a few potential partners they are currently speaking to.
Community Kitchen
This will be the most substantial part of the sustainability program. They have already secured partners to coordinate health and safety and COVID compliance training of all the people who would be qualified for this program. Gawa is working with the Community Based Organisations (CBOs) who are currently the main channel of distribution to between 50–500 beneficiaries per location as a means of sustainability. The idea is to empower CBOs to provide these meals independently without needing donations from Gawa and leveraging their infrastructure by creating the network and building financial models the CBOs will need to sustain income and continue to feed the beneficiaries in need for the long term.
Everyone can contribute
Kashfi
“What’s great is that everyone can give, I remember seeing a young 18-year-old girl pop up on our Mpesa till, being so excited. For 60 shillings, a person can say they are impacting the lives of someone else, giving them the satisfaction that they are making a difference.”
Caroline
“The bulk of the donations have not been the significant lump sums, but lots of people making the smaller donations, multiples of 60; 120, 300 and 600 shillings. Something that resonated with me was when someone said that we were making it possible for everyone to participate. So people are doing what they can”
Gawa is making an impact and in many cases providing a meal to someone that does not eat every day. This is only possible because of donations and therefore fundraising is Gawa’s priority right now. Gawa exists because of the generosity of people with their time and money.
That’s amazing; we can’t wait to see Gawa grow and have even more global impact. Any advice for other Room members to spark a similar transformative collaboration?
Caroline — the unnatural conversations.
“Once you’ve gone through a career and you’ve put people in boxes — your professional box, social box or even family box. It doesn’t feel natural to have a conversation to feed thousands of people with your fellow kindergarten mum. Be brave enough to have the unnatural conversations”
Kashfi — the courage to be vulnerable.
“ Have the courage to be vulnerable. If you feel strongly about an idea, express it and share with others. Be open to having it criticised, broken down and refined so that it can have the intended impact you see…Being vulnerable for collaborations, we have developed an incredible partnership which extends to the work, we are doing; we have five partners who are large for-profit organisations, smaller charities and the grassroots organisations each playing their part as a result.”
Donate — for just $10 you can deliver food for up to 16 people!
- for local donors: Mpesa till#: 5211307
- for local donors that want to put in a more substantial lump sum: please contact info@gawa.ke
- for International donors: http://www.justgiving.com/kindheart (a certified UK based charity)
