Kamacharia Location·
Murang'a, Central Kenya·
Established 2008
We put an income in the hands of rural women in Kamacharia — and the skills to keep it growing. A member receives a dairy heifer, owns it outright, and passes the first heifer calf on to the next woman.
The dairy programme
A heifer arrives, and it belongs to a member from that day. She learns to feed it properly — the chopped fodder above is the daily work of it — and once the cow is in milk she has an income that comes every morning.
When the heifer calves, the first heifer calf goes to the next woman on the list.
Our mission
Davila-Mwihoko exists to put an income in the hands of rural women. We place a dairy heifer with a member and the animal is hers — the milk money is hers, the herd is hers, and no one can take the job away.
We supply the animal and the start-up costs, the training to keep it healthy and productive, and the business skills to reinvest and grow. Then the gift moves: when her heifer calves, the first heifer calf goes to the next woman on the list. A woman who earns decides — on food, on school fees, on what comes next. Multiply that across a village and the whole community's standard of living rises.
Our work
Kamune is a small village in Murang'a whose families live on subsistence farming. Most hold shambas of under two acres, worked by the women alongside their children. The work is constant and almost none of it earns money.
A woman here does not need to be taught to work. What she needs is an asset that pays her for the work she is already doing.
What we do now
A member receives an in-calf heifer, along with training in feeding, housing and animal health. Once the cow is in milk she sells daily to her neighbours — a small, steady, local income that arrives every morning. The manure goes onto her shamba, so her food crop improves at the same time.
The heifer is hers outright. What she owes is the first heifer calf.
2008–2010 · where we began
The group's first venture was a communal pigsty, built in 2008 around two pregnant sows and grown to a herd of thirty-four. It taught us how to run livestock as a business and it funded what came next — but feed prices were punishing and the returns came only twice a year. We moved to dairy because milk pays a woman every morning instead of every six months.
The pig herd is no longer how we work. It is how we learned.
And alongside it
An income only changes a family's future if the children stay in school. We currently help pay high school fees for about 15 students from member households, funded from the group's earnings and from donors who give for that purpose.
The cow belongs to the member outright — not a share in someone else's herd, and not a job she can be let go from.
Feeding, housing, and spotting the early signs of illness, because a sick cow is lost earnings. We also help members plan a kitchen garden, which cuts what the household has to buy.
Every member is also a donor. She passes on the first heifer calf — so the money we raise once keeps buying results long after it is spent.
How it multiplies
The programme is built to outlive the money that started it. A member does not repay us in cash — she repays the next woman, in kind, with a calf. That is why a single gift keeps buying results long after it has been spent.
The dairy chain
An in-calf heifer goes to a selected member, with training in feeding, housing and animal health.
Once the cow is in milk she sells daily to her neighbours. Manure goes onto her shamba.
The calf goes to the next woman on the list. The cow, and every calf after, stay with her.
and the next woman begins at step one
What that has produced
We have bought and placed twelve heifers. Members themselves have passed on twenty-seven calves. More than twice as many women are now earning from milk as we ever bought animals for — and every calf born from here on widens it again.
Where we are
Entirely funded by personal donations from overseas supporters and the group's own directors. The pig herd was the beginning; the dairy chain is where it led.
The pigsty is built and the first two pregnant sows arrive.
Both mothers farrow. Fifteen piglets.
The litter matures. Thirteen pigs are delivered to Farmer's Choice; two are kept back to become mothers themselves.
The herd peaks at four sows, one boar and twenty-nine growing pigs.
The group moves to dairy. The first in-calf heifer is placed with a member.
The first heifer calf is passed on, and the chain starts.
Twelve heifers placed, twenty-seven calves passed on, and thirty-nine women earning from milk.
What it costs
The heifer is nearly the whole cost. It is paid once, and from then on the member carries the feeding out of her own milk income — which is why one gift keeps working long after it is spent, and why every calf she passes on costs us nothing at all.
Our largest single line, and the one that decides how many women we can take on in a year. One heifer is one household's income, permanently.
Funded by sponsorship, one animal at a timeFeeding, housing and veterinary care in the first months. A cow that falls sick early can set a household back a year.
Small cost, decides whether the rest worksTap water is expensive and unreliable, and the valley is a long climb with a full jerrycan. Dairy cattle drink a great deal.
Solved once at the pigsty: we dug our own water holeWho we are
Founder
A research scientist at Howard University in Washington, D.C., and the origin of the idea that a small herd, properly run, could change a village's prospects.
Co-founder
A retired banker from Standard Chartered Bank Kenya, Nairobi. Kamacharia is home; she selects and mentors the members and runs the project on the ground.
Consultant paediatrician at Kenyatta National Hospital and lecturer in the University of Nairobi's Faculty of Medicine, with consulting practice at Nairobi Hospital, Aga Khan and Gertrude's Garden Children's Hospital. Long involved in community and charity work.
An educationist who served for decades as headteacher of Loreto Kiambu Secondary School, known for opening the school's doors to children who could not otherwise afford to attend. A qualified counsellor.
A chartered accountant, formerly of Unga Group Ltd and now self-employed. Works widely on community development, particularly in helping children in need get to school.
Members are drawn from the villages around Kamacharia Location. We look for women who have already shown initiative in trying to lift their households — market vending, weaving and selling baskets, working as labourers on other people's farms. What a member must bring is a place to keep the cow and her own labour. Our aim is to widen the group as funds allow, and in time to establish pass-on chains like this one in other parts of the country.
Support us
Every shilling so far has come from individuals. A gift buys a heifer, or keeps a student in school — and because members pass on the first calf themselves, it does not stop at the first woman.
We are a community self-help group registered in Kenya. If you need documentation for your own records — a receipt, or confirmation of how a gift was spent — ask and we will provide it.