We envision sustainable, smart and efficient communities in which new values and services are created continuously, we intend to be the deciding difference in their creation. 

We are starting today, by asking communities how to bridge the gap between tomorrow and today. 

Interestingly, we have uncovered that to move forward we have to go back to the beginning. Kadana is creating the future by going back to the genesis.

 Our ethos is rooted on a tradition of coming together to solve problems

Our mothers came together in small groups called ‘chamas’, these were and still are units of change. Over the years the chama has evolved, the members look different, but the ethos of community remains. Our work at Kadana is rooted on this ‘community’.  

When we were younger, holidays were reserved for get togethers at dana’s. Our Dana’s ruled over the families with stealth power and never-ending bouts of love. It was a time of good food and wise words. When I envisioned community change, the question was does progress always means moving forward? 

And so in a world that is keen on moving forward, getting more for the individual. Our vision is to go back for those we left behind. How do we reset genesis? By questioning the very foundational principles on which our systems are built, by starting from the first stone, going back to the core unit of society. By starting at the bottom of the pyramid. 

We live in a world today riddled with inequalities. From an imbalance between profit and social good, innovation and social integrity, bulk production and climate change, industrialization and biodiversity, gender and equality. While we are aware that food crisis, climate change or unemployment cannot be solved overnight, what we are advocating for is the audacity to see the world as it should be while having the humility to see it as it is.  

Over the past two years, these inequalities have been magnified tenfold, to get the world back to its feet requires audacious imagination. At independence Kenya set the promise to work to defeat three main enemies: poverty, ignorance, and disease. In the same spirit today, we are working towards efficient rural economies, inclusive education and sustainable health citizenship. By harnessing the spirit of our foundation and honoring these intentions for a new republic we envision the next level.  

We are starting by asking three fundamental questions: 

The first: how might women and youth leverage technology to create sustainable rural economic systems?  

The second: how might we leverage technology to create inclusive, creative and accessible learning experiences 

Finally: How might we leverage technology to create sustainable community healthcare systems? 

To answer these questions, is to create a new foundation. In the age of information, we have tools to move to the next level, to create a new approach to reducing inequality. By leveraging the access to information and connectivity we are creating a foundation that is the deciding difference for communities with more balance. We are creating a foundation for profits with social benefits, socially integrating innovations, conservational production chains, gender responsive opportunities and a development agenda that gives as much weight to the depth as it does the breadth of impact. 

With an awareness that a better tomorrow is determined by work today, Kadana in the spirit of chamas is a collective of efforts for better. It is for the Dana still making sisal fiber by hand and the young techie with the tools to create universes that could only be dreamt before to sit at the table and together link the past and the future for a better now. And so with our feet rooted firmly in the ethos of our community we go further envisioning a smart sustainable and economically efficient community. But most importantly, daring to be the deciding difference in its creation. 

Dana* : Grandmother in Luo.