#MyBigWhy aka Doing Hard Things

Why would a lawyer, executive coach, media personality, or women's rights advocate venture into healthcare? The answer is these women. These women are #MyBigWhy.

They have taught me so much. First, when I started teaching women how to start and grow their businesses with ReneeSense Ltd , Teresa Njoroge approached me and asked me why I was not training "women like us". When I asked her who "women like us" are, she introduced me to Clean Start Africa and the formerly imprisoned women. 73% of them had served short-term sentences for non-violent, poverty-related, "crimes" - selling outside the designated zone, hawking, brewing, loitering, debt default [yes - this is a crime in Kenya]. They are sent to prison with the children under 4 years of age; those older, are left outside, often becoming street children, where their mothers are single mothers with no family support. [92% of incarcerated women have children under 10 years]. When the women are released after their sentences [usually less than 10 months] they find all their belongings stolen, their houses locked up and their children traumatized. And now they have to start over...

The activist in me rose in anger. Why are we doing this? The award-winning media champion in me thought, "we have to spotlight this". The mom in me cried for these children. The lawyer in me thought, "how do we coalesce to change the law?" The business coach in me said - "ok, how do we create great businesses that elevate these women from poverty?" The strategist in me decided - what problem are we solving first?

And so we started. How To Make Your Side Hustle Your Main Hustle; Start and Grow Your Business; Circles of Healing; Tables of Support, Ufunuo for psycho-social healing and support, skills training in prisons with partners such as @chandariafoundation @Bso the women would come out with skills and with an ability to contribute to businesses. And it has worked! These women do amazing beadwork, design and tailor clothes, bake and sell popular mandazi, "ngumus', are in construction and eco-charcoal brick and have some amazing online businesses - some have pitched successfully for funding in such far-flung places as Switzerland. Some of the businesses export into the region and beyond! Most hire other people in the businesses, creating employment for other women.

Yet one problem remained.

Whenever they were confronted with a medical bill, their default was to remove all the capital from their businesses to pay for the bill, borrow, often from shylocks, delay care, or ignore the disease until the disease was too far gone. We had to find a healthcare solution that works for their price point, their cashflows, their needs including the fact that if they leave their stalls or places of work to go to the clinic, they lose a full day of work in addition to having the transport costs of travel.

This is the ENTIRE purpose of CheckUps . Finance embedded healthtech that helps our clients access finance, pay for, manage and share healthcare benefits and translates every shilling paid into 4X worth of healthcare benefits which they can share with family, friends, co-workers, employees. No age restrictions, no exclusion for pre-existing conditions, no restrictions on consanguinity, no wait time! None! And yes, we go to them. It sounds crazy, right? Yet it IS working [at the time of writing, for over 56k beneficiaries] all over Kenya and beyond. And we are serving people who were previously ignored by private health insurance and underserved by overstretched outpatient public healthcare - Sisters - moms, children, parents, men, PWDs, chamas... pretty much everyone who signs up.

Why? So women "like us" never have to borrow from shylocks, delay care, run into trouble with the law, or "de-finance" their businesses just to pay a medical bill for themselves or a loved one.

Clean Start Africa #SistersOnTheOutside YOU are my inspiration! You are my WHY. You are the reason that I co-founded CheckUps with Moka Lantum one of the world's topmost healthcare benefits management experts [you know I don't do anything in half measures ;) ]. Because if we can make healthcare accessible to you, we together, can disrupt healthcare financing in Africa and make it available to EVERYONE!

Thank you for the honor of serving you. Because of you, I am taking on the biggest and toughest area to disrupt. I am becoming a fintech health tech specialist - a fish in a blue ocean. I won't lie. I have #MadLove for you, my Dadas.

#disruptinghealthcarefinancing #startup #financing #healthcare #MyBigWhy #purpose #GrowthHacking #TransformingAfrica #DoHardThings

Check out https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/clean-start-kenya_we-extend-our-heartfelt-thanks-to-renee-ngamau-activity-7208758063040765952-TEkW?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop