Tina Built Her Business from the Ground Up. Then She Lost Everything

 


For more than a decade, Tina was a businesswoman.

In 2014, with just KSh 15,000, she started selling onions and omena in her local market, in Kibera.

The business was modest, but it worked. Her cohort was onboarded into SheEO MAP. 

She learned how to manage stock.
She understood customer behavior.
She mastered daily cash flow.

At the end of a good day, Tina earned about KSh 500, and now she was looking to grow that.

That income supported not just Tina, but her dependants as well.

Like many women in Kenya’s informal economy, Tina’s business was more than a source of income.

It was stability.
It was dignity.
It was independence.

Then, in August 2025, A month before graduating SheEO MAP, everything collapsed.

Railway authorities came and reclaimed the trading spaces where Tina and many others operated.

Her stall was destroyed.

In a single moment, years of hard work disappeared.

No inventory.
No stall.
No income.
No clear path forward.

The loss was devastating.

Today, Tina works as a cleaner at Chiromo Campus, doing casual labor to survive.

At home, her challenges continue.

She is caring for her bedridden mother, who requires specialized care, treatment, and medication.

The financial pressure is immense.

But the emotional burden is just as heavy.

“This situation is lowering my self-esteem very much,” Tina shares.

That sentence says more than numbers ever could.

Poverty is not only about lack of money.

It is also about what repeated financial shocks do to confidence, identity, and hope.

Yet even now, Tina has not stopped fighting.

She wants to rebuild.

She wants to return to business.

She wants to earn with dignity again.

What Tina is asking for is simple:
a chance.

Through SheEO’s ecosystem of financial literacy, peer accountability, savings culture, and catalytic funding, women like Tina can rebuild sustainably.

And the early signs are already visible.

Her group kitty has grown from KSh 900 at the beginning of the year to KSh 11,950 today.

That growth tells us something important.

Even under extreme hardship, discipline remains.

Potential remains.

The entrepreneurial spirit remains.

Tina’s story is not about loss.

It is about rebuilding after disruption.

And sometimes, all rebuilding needs is the right support at the right moment.


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