Turning the tide: a coastal community in Kenya is investing in its own future

“I want you to take one of those talking photos,” insists Hamisi Charo Kenga, a community member and patron of the Kaloleni Community Foundation (KCF) in Kilifi, Kenya, as he hands his phone over to a fellow resident for the moment to be documented.

“A talking photo?” responds the community member. “Do you mean a video?”

“No!” Hamisi enthuses; “I mean one of those photos that speak a thousand words!”

Hamisi’s request is, indeed, marked by a significant occasion. KCF, just nine months after their formation, has come together to unveil their most recent achievement: the installation of a 5,000-litre water tank.

Beaming community members and foundation leaders gather in front of the tank – the words KALOLENI COMMUNITY FOUNDATION, DONATED BY: COUNTY GOVERNMENT OF KILIFI printed clearly across it – to capture the moment. For the people of Kaloleni, and the Foundation’s committee, it is a scene that speaks volumes.

Community-led development on the Swahili Coast

Established in March 2024, KCF is a group of community members who’ve come together from Kaloleni, Chanagande and Jibane – three villages in Kilifi County – to address the social and infrastructural needs, challenges and opportunities their community faces.

What defines KCF is that members have organised with the intention of formally becoming a community foundation – raising seed funding, rallying their community and seeking buy-in from various interest groups.

KCF is among 16 similar groups emerging across Kenya’s Swahili Coast in response to a drive for community-led development under the umbrella programme the Swahili Coast Community Foundation Initiative (SCCFI). Co-financed by the Aga Khan Foundation and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, SCCFI was established to harness the ‘spirit of Harambee (all pull together)’ in Kenya – ranked among the world’s most generous nations in 2020 by the Charities Aid Foundation – and to respond to the urgent need for community-driven initiatives in coastal communities.

Historical inequality, poverty, unemployment and limited access to education have long contributed to the socio-economic, political and infrastructural marginalisation of these communities. Four of Kenya’s six coastal counties rank among the most impoverished and unequal in the country , with as many as 55% of youth either underemployed or without work.

Kaloleni, about 50kms north of Mombasa City, is no exception. Home to rolling valleys of palm, acacia and baobab trees, the people of Kaloleni, despite their area’s natural beauty and resources, are amongst the poorest communities living along the coast. Impacted by global geopolitical issues and the effects of climate change, such as erratic rainfalls and long spells of drought, the community’s cost-of-living continues to rise, while infrastructure and resources remain limited and inefficient.

The drive to action sustainable and impactful change in communities like Kaloleni stems from a long-held frustration at seemingly unchanging circumstances. Yet as Phillip Jefwa Kalama, Chairman of KCF, says, “The Community Foundation is bringing new hope. People believe; they tell me, “We are trusting you – from 1963 until today, we have never seen these things happening. So please, don’t let us down.””

Rooted and grounded in community needs

In less than a year of existence, KCF is already driving positive change. It has directly supported 5,963 individuals to date, and its influence is continuing to grow.

KCF has placed the renovation of Kaloleni’s community hospital on government radars, and it is now included in the County Government’s 2025/26 budget. The foundation has also provided 480 adolescent girls with sanitary products and other basic needs and restored the community dias (a platform for political figures to address communities). The newly installed 5, 000-litrewater tank is another significant achievement – which not only provides water but also serves as an income generator for the foundation, and by extension the community.

KCF has achieved this impact by applying the basic principles of what constitutes a community foundation: focusing on the needs of a place and its community.

“For community foundations to work, they have to be really rooted and grounded within a particular place,” says Jeremy Maarman, Director of the Initiative for Community Advancement, which is based in South Africa. “Those who are initiating their community’s foundation should be really clear about what it is… it’s a specific kind of non-profit; it’s a community grant-making organisation; it’s community philanthropy.”

A continual flow of funds

With people and place at the heart of this approach to locally-led development, marginalised communities have been able to take charge of decisions on how to improve their community and how such improvements are resourced.

“Water is a challenge in our community, and it’s one of the thematic areas that we prioritised as a community foundation,” explains Kalama. “The rains are not there, so harvesting rainwater is unthinkable. And when it does rain, there’s no infrastructure… most of the people [here] are living below the poverty line, so harvesting water is a problem.”

As a short-term solution, KCF members advocated for support by writing letters to county government and pooling funds from community donors. Their efforts were met by a willing administration.

“Because the community in Kaloleni started doing something,” muses Maarman, “the government came along and said: “we want to be a part of this; we have to be a part of this anyway, but you’re making it easier because you’re showing us up.””

KCF’s water tank now provides clean water to community members for a small fee. By charging for this resource, KCF has built a community-affiliated fund – a mechanism where funds can continually flow into the foundation’s account which are used to invest in and generate more resources within Kaloleni.

The fund equips KCF as a grant-making organisation, enabling it to channel finances to local bodies – youth and women’s groups that implement development programmes and projects, for example – and to determine how a myriad of community needs might be responded to.

“For a long time, outsiders – I call them outsiders in that they are NGOs who operate outside of these communities – would come and dictate what communities should implement or address,” says Kennedy Odera, Programme Coordinator for Capacity Building and Systems Strengthening at the Kenya Community Development Foundation. “[But] when we talk about ‘shifting the power’, we are saying we need to shift the power to communities so that they make their own decision.”

Odera is referring not only to international NGOs, but also NGOs from within Kenya, which have historically gone into rural communities and delivered projects with limited consultation. He describes community foundations as exactly what is needed to genuinely shift power as they are “community led, community driven, community owned”.

Shifting perspectives on community power

KCF’s water tank shows that the tide is turning. Not only is it generating water and funds; it is also empowering community members to feel like they’re co-investing in Kaloleni, simply by using this resource.

“[Community foundations] are about having skin in the game,” says Maarman, “and with this comes a shift in perspective about how investment in community happens. “It’s also about giving your time, your skill and your knowledge… it’s saying that everyone has the power to influence things – and it’s asking: ‘how do you use your power to make a positive contribution towards development?’”

By engaging the community and partnering with local government, KCF has provided an effective platform for individuals, families and businesses to contribute to causes within Kaloleni – where successes, like the water tank, are inspiring further work.

“Our goal is to have boreholes in every village, because that’s sustainable. But it’ll require a lot of resources,” says Kalama. And while KCF’s momentum is growing, he’s not impervious to the reality of driving change in Kaloleni. “I’ve learned that we need to be very resilient; the community foundation is not a one-day journey.”