Photograph: Business Daily.

Women make up more than half the population of Kenya, yet the obstacles they face in rising and thriving are formidable, chief among them being their near sole responsibility for the nation’s children.

With attitudes at every level stacked against women in balancing home and work, both legislation and shifts in society have served to move more women into poverty and out of formal work, for, far from advancing, the last five years have seen Kenya’s women move backwards economically.

An instrumental turning point was the introduction of legislation in 2007 extending paid maternity leave from two to three months. Despite the law’s honourable intentions, it has left them further behind men than they were in 2005... Read more.

(Maternity law scores own goal for working women, written for African Laughter, was published in the 3 June 2011 edition of Kenya’s Business Daily supplement BDLife (Page 4). This issue of BDLife is dedicated to BD’s Top 40 Under 40, an annual ranking of women who have risen to occupy positions of influence in Kenyan society before the age of 40.

D+C July/August 2011.

A different version of the African Laughter article was published in the July 2011 edition of the monthly journal D+C - Development Cooperation - under the index title Extending maternity leave in Kenya was a double-edged reform. The journal D+C is funded by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. Its mission is ‘to provide a credible forum of debate, involving governments, civil society, the private sector and academia at an international level’. ‘D+C is the identical twin of E+Z Entwicklung und Zusammenarbeit, the leading German language publication on development issues.’)

An innovative Kenyan project, which combines crowd sourced stories and citizen reporting, is set to be rolled out in a few weeks.

The Kuyu Project is aimed to enrich local content and empower the youth through story sharing.

It's a digital literacy initiative, which aims to use the Web to revolutionise East African social media through the networking site – StorySpaces.

StorySpaces was demonstrated at the Media 140 conference in Barcelona. It is a mobile-based social networking site where youth can share stories and search for important news logged on other young people's accounts.

The concept is based on the idea that Internet users want to participate in their community rather than just consume information, and that Facebook and Twitter offer limitations to documenting full-length stories... Full story.

(This story was published on the Johannesburg, South Africa based ITWeb on 31 May 2011. An earlier version of the story was published on KenyaKidz of Nairobi, Kenya.)

Photograph: Business Daily.

Recent months have seen the roll out of an entirely new kind of finance in the Kenyan market, focused on fuelling the growth of high-impact SMEs in order to create the ‘missing middle economy’ in the country’s business arena.

The new system, which provides finance to entrepreneurs based on psychometric testing, is set to revolutionize the shape of Kenyan banking by fast-tracking the expansion of emerging businesses led by entrepreneurs with the right character and profile for future success, rather than lending based on their previous track record and credit history.

The tests assess small business credit risk, but they also analyse the intelligence, business skills and psychological profile of the entrepreneur, and have been piloted in Kenya by both Equity Bank and CFC Stanbic.

The aim is to spur lending to small and midsize enterprises based on testing the ‘jockey’ and not the ‘horse’, so that a client’s credit risk and potential can be assessed with as much accuracy as traditional credit scoring models, but without any credit history or collateral... Full article (Page 10).

(This article was first published in Kenya’s Business Daily magazine The edge (Page 10) on 27 May 2011.)

Woman walking, surrounded by waste, on the outskirts of Kibera slum, Nairobi, Kenya. International Women’s Day, 8 March 2011. Photograph: Larisa Brown.

At a world environment summit held last month Environment Secretary Alice Akinyi Kaudia stressed the need to reach out to grassroots women in order to create a truly sustainable “green economy”.

The meeting of the Network of Women Ministers and Leaders for the Environment, which was held at the United Nations Nairobi on 23rd February, discussed the importance of integrating women into the fight for environmental sustainability by promoting women’s economic contributions, including decision-making in policy and business, and increasing women’s share in new ‘green’ jobs... Read more.

(The text of this story was first published on the secure website of the Webaraza news agency on 8 March 2011.)

Back-to-school shopping. Opening seasons are usually hectic for parents and guardians who, among other responsibilities, have to queue in banking halls for hours to deposit fees. Photograph: Liz Muthoni.

For mother-of-two, Susan Muthui, just like other Kenyan parents, the school opening season is a nightmare.

It usually means taking a day off work and spending hours queuing in banking halls to deposit fees.

Then it means queuing again at the finance office in school to present the banking slip as proof of payment.

But now, thanks to a new innovative payment system for schools called SchoolPay by PesaPal, this could be a thing of the past... Full story.

(This story was first published in the online and print editions of Kenya’s Business Daily newspaper on 7 March 2011.)

Woman breastfeeding. Photograph: Copyright acknowledged.

For first time mothers, breastfeeding can take time to learn and perfect even though it is a natural process. As with the learning of all new skills, help and guidance from other mothers who have breastfed can greatly help.

This is where Mama’s Support Network and the Breastfeeding Peer Support Counsellors can help, a dedicated service providing mothers with the guidance necessary to have the best possible breastfeeding experience for both themselves and their baby.

The initiative took off only two weeks ago, and is already drawing in mothers from around Nairobi. Taking place every Friday, between 9.30 and 11.30, a trained volunteer counsellor in breastfeeding offers her support to mothers, whether it is giving them tips on how to get their baby to latch or teaching them the best way to prevent sore nipples.

If you are worried your baby isn’t getting enough milk or you want to return to work and need help to express your milk then this support group is ideal... Full story.

(This story was first published by KenyaKidz on 16 February 2011.)