The Kenyan Red Cross Society and the French Red Cross applied to the Solidarity Fund for Innovative Projects (FSPI) of the French government and successfully won some funds to support the launch of I.O.ME001, an innovation space opening in September 2022 in Mombasa, Kenya. The Strategy, Innovation, Transformation and Impact (SITI) department of the French Red Cross is recruiting a consultant for a 12-month period in order to launch, operate and sustain a Women Social Entrepreneurship Institute as part of I.O.ME001.
Beginning of the mission: September 2022
Length of the mission: One year
Location: First month at 21, the Social Innovation Accelerator of the French Red Cross at Montrouge, near Paris and then at I.O.ME001, Mombasa, Kenya
Deadline to submit your application: August 20th, 2022
I. CONTEXT
The French Red Cross and the Kenya Red Cross Society are part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement: a global humanitarian network of 80 million members and volunteers who work to help people affected by disaster, armed conflict and health and social problems. The Movement includes the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the 192 National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
Presentation of the French Red Cross (FRC)
With 66,275 volunteers and 17,266 paid staff in France and abroad, the French Red Cross’ activities can be classified under 3 missions:
- Prevent and educate | Create the conditions of local solidarity to reduce risks, enable everyone to deploy their potential and learn to protect themselves and others.
- Protecting | Providing assistance to people in situations of collective crisis or life disruption and caring for physical and psychological wounds.
- To recover by re-establishing social links | To give each person the keys to his or her recovery through participation in society.
Presentation of the Strategy, Innovation, Transformation and Impact Department (SITI) of the FRC
Created in 2017, the mission of the Strategy, Innovation, Transformation and Impact Department (SITI) is to support the strategic transformation of the French Red Cross’ priority activities in order to better meet the needs of the people it supports, from foresight, modelling, experimentation and the deployment of new systems to impact measurement and the international sharing of the solutions developed.
Within the SITI department, the International Innovation Unit has the goal to:
. Identify and promote social innovations created and developed within the International Red Cross Red Crescent Movement and by public and private actors engaged in missions of general interest |
Social innovation is today an essential lever for the transformation of organisations in the not-for-profit sector. The 192 national societies of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement are no exception to this logic: if they wish to maintain their status as the largest social actor in the world, they must evolve and implement a social innovation strategy capable of ensuring the sustainability of their social utility mission and imagining a diversification of models, tools and collaborations. In order to meet these needs, the French Red Cross and the Spanish Red Cross have launched the “Red Social Innovation” resource centre, which highlights social innovations coming from different actors from the social and solidarity economy.
. Supporting and learning from each other among National Societies |
In order to enable the adaptation of innovative solutions between National Societies, the International Innovation Unit is working on capacity building to facilitate skills transfer between different actors of the Movement.
Presentation of 21, the Social Innovation Accelerator of the French Red Cross
21 is a 1,000m² space dedicated to social innovation located on the first floor of the French Red Cross headquarters in Montrouge, near Paris. 21 is also a set of support programmes for social impact projects. Lasting six months each, the programmes help project leaders test, improve and deploy products and services that address poorly or inadequately met social needs.
There are three entrepreneurial support programmes, designed for actors outside the French Red Cross, and an intrapreneurial programme, designed for the association’s volunteers, employees and students. The successful projects benefit from:
- the support of an expert from the French Red Cross ;
- a fertile environment for experimentation (1,037 local organisations and 577 social, medico-social and health establishments) ;
- advice from external professionals (finance, legal) and internal professionals (across all social, health and medico-social professions),
- a place in the coworking space ;
- a financial package of several thousand euros.
Presentation of Mombasa, Kenya
According to the World Bank, youth aged 18-35 comprise three-quarters of the population in Kenya and is a great potential source of social and economic energy for the country, but is untapped. In Mombasa, 66% of the population is of working age, out of which the majority are unemployed. Besides, depending on the local community, youngsters are often seen as liabilities and are not able, contrary to elders, to exert a strong influence within their social group. Mombasa is however East-Africa’s first harbour connected with the rest of the world and equipped with major economic and production centres as well as with higher education infrastructures.
Presentation of the Kenya Red Cross Society
Auxiliary to National and County governments since 1965, the Kenya Red Cross aims to preventing and alleviating human suffering without any discrimination. It counts 217 000 volunteers, 47 branch offices and 500 employees. Innovation is at the heart of the Kenya Red CRoss Society. The Innovation Unit of the Kenya Red Cross Society was established in 2018 and hosted under the International Centre for Humanitarian Affairs (knowledge hub of the KRCS). Innovation remains as one of the core values of the KRCS dedicated to delivering humanitarian services through effective and innovative approaches and processes.
Here are a few examples of innovative projects led by the Kenya Red Cross Society:
- I.O.ME.001, broadening youth economic opportunities in rural Kenya
- Sarafus, the community currency at the service of the local economy in Kenya
- How can drones revolutionize humanitarian action in Kenya
- Design thinking as an approach to develop solutions to WASH challenges within the East Africa Region | Skybird Programme
- How to host a virtual Design Thinking workshop for 6 different countries during a pandemic | Skybird Programme
- This plasma purifier is improving access to safe drinking water | Airbus
- KRCS Innovation Newsletter 2020
The Kenya Red Cross Society launched an innovation hub in Mombasa and is further setting up a larger innovation centre within Mombasa County to provide youth with accesability to a youth safe space. The centre will be dedicated to ideate solutions, fabricate prototypes, support startups and
Business models towards enterpreneurship opportunities.
The Kenyan Red Cross Society and the French Red Cross
The French Red Cross does not have a delegation in Kenya. However, the Innovation team of the French Red Cross and the Innovation team of the Kenyan Red Cross Society have started to investigate how to work together in January 2021. The Innovation team of the French Red Cross sent an intern in Kenya for a 3-month period to assess potential areas of collaboration between the two organisations. This is how they decided to apply to a call for proposals together.
II. THE MISSION
The Kenyan Red Cross Society and the French Red Cross applied to the Solidarity Fund for Innovative Projects (FSPI) and successfully won some funds to support the launch of I.O.ME001.
The I.O.ME001 project is an innovation space in Mombasa, Keyna, distinguished above all by the plurality of actors involved. These include the Kenyan Red Cross innovation teams based in Nairobi and Mombasa, “IOME005”, the Kenyan Red Cross innovation lab in Lamu, as well as the FlipFlopi foundation active there, the French Red Cross and 21, its social innovation hub, and other external partners.
General Objective I
The general objective of IOME001 is to create new employment opportunities for young people in Mombasa, with a particular focus on women and girls, who are under-represented in the innovation and industrial sector. Together with the Kenyan Red Cross Society, the objective of the FRC is to set up a social innovation centre for young people and women in Mombasa, Kenya, which will include a Women Social Entrepreneurship Institute, based on the model of what has been created at 21, in Paris.
The project activities will take place in two main consecutive locations:
1. The Kenyan Red Cross office in Mombasa | Pending the establishment of the IOME001 Innovation Centre, the various activities proposed will take place at the Kenyan Red Cross office in Mombasa.
2. Mbaraki Girls Primary School in Mombasa | The innovation centre “IOME001” is scheduled to open in January 2022 at Mbaraki Girls Primary School in Mombasa and will consist of a fablab, an incubator for social entrepreneurship projects, a co-working space, a workshop and a meeting space. This space will allow young people and women to develop, test and learn new methodologies. The Mbaraki School is located at Dedan Kimathi Street, Mvita Constituency, Main island.
The I.O.ME001 innovation centre in Mombasa, Kenya, will be located at the local Kenyan Red Cross unit. Later on, the centre will be located in a dedicated space within the grounds of the Mbaraki Girls Primary School. It will be called “IOME001, the social innovation hub of Mombasa”. The main objective is to support resilience and the development of solutions for and by the community. 001 represents the county code of Mombasa. This initiative is supported by the Kenya Red Cross, the French Red Cross and the French Government.
Under the responsibility of the Head of Editorial and International Innovation at the French Red Cross and working closely with the Kenyan Red Cross Society local team of Mombasa, you will have the mission of designing, launching and operating the Women Social Entrepreneurship Institute.
Objectives of the Women Social Entrepreneurship Institute I
- To support women leadership and social entrepreneurship approaches for local youth communities
- To grow a diversified social economy, focusing on building internal capacity and local markets
- To foster a locally led innovation ecosystem for the creation and implementation of solutions that respond to local needs
- Encourage entrepreneurship in the Kenya’s second largest city and fight youth unemployment
Methodologies of social entrepreneurship I
The Women Social Entrepreneurship Institute will be launched building upon the expertise of 21, the social innovation accelerator of the French Red Cross.
Over the course of two years, two classes of project leaders will be supported through two ten-month incubation programmes that will enable 20 young people to be trained to design sustainable products or services with a high social impact. The first cohort will be launched and operated by the French Red Cross while the second cohort will be operated by the Kenyan Red Cross local teams.
Each 10-month programme will be articulated in 4 phases:
1. Acculturation and co-creation workshops (2 months) – During the first phase of the incubation, we invite the entire IOME001 community (volunteers, staff, beneficiaries of local branches, school community, parents/guardians of students, Mombasa County Government, private and public sector partners, learning institutes) to different awareness raising, acculturation and design thinking workshops to understand the social needs, develop solutions and select future winners. At the end of this phase, a pitching session will be held to present the solutions and select 10 winners by a jury composed of representatives of the Kenya Red Cross (from the headquarters and local branches in Mombasa), the French Red Cross and local partners. The 10 winners will also receive a 500 euro grant;
2. Design phase (3 months) – During the design phase, the 10 winners will be supported on a daily basis by the head of the Institute of Social Entrepreneurship for Women (of the French Red Cross) & by social entrepreneurship experts identified locally or virtually through the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement network. At the end of this phase, the winners will have created: a first business plan, a timeline and the finalisation of the value proposition. A first version of the MVP will be produced at the end of this phase.
3. Testing and iteration (3 months) – During this phase, 10 winners will test their prototype and get feedback from the beneficiaries, in order to improve and adapt their solutions;
4. Impact measurement and business development (2 months) – Thanks to the methodologies developed by 21, the winners will be able to measure the impact of their solutions, and start business development and fundraising. At the end of the coaching, an evening presentation of the projects to a jury will be organised. The winning project will receive a budget of €5000 – financed by a private partner – to develop its project.
Throughout the process, the head of the Women’s Social Entrepreneurship Institute will support the winners by organising workshops and putting them in touch with external professionals in Kenya and abroad.
KPIs I
- Bring awareness around social entrepreneurship to 100 women in Mombasa, kenya
- 20 women-led enterprises developed and supported by the Women Social Entrepreneurship
- 50% of the social enterprises developed under the programme deploy an effective solution and find financial autonomy
- Strong experience in partnership and capacity building
- Knowledge on Humanitarian Innovation, its processes and approaches
III. COMPETENCIES
- A solid experience (3-5 y minimum) in the humanitarian sector, ideally in Kenya or East Africa
- graduate or post-graduate degree in relevant field
- Excellent knowledge of social entrepreneurship methodologies
- Excellent/native speaker in English (French and Swahili are welcome but not essential)
- Strong interpersonal and communication skills
- Autonomous and team-worker
- Hands-on & pro-active profile
- Strong experience in partnership and capacity building
- Knowledge on Humanitarian Innovation, its processes and approaches
Please send your application letter and CV at:
Giulio Zucchini: [email protected] and Camille Loiseau: [email protected]
