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Farmland and homesteads.

A Kenyan foundation, since 2020.

What began as one cohort in 2020 is now a registered NGO working across Kenya, turning waste into food and opportunity.

Our workThe impact

Who we are

Lishe Grow Foundation turns the organic waste a community throws away into food security and household income.

The work began in Kibera in 2020 and formalised as a non-governmental organization in 2026. Since then it has grown into composting hubs, school and household gardens, and women's cohorts, all built on one idea: nothing useful should be thrown away. "Lishe" means nutrition in Swahili. The foundation also works to include people often left out: single mothers, caregivers of children with albinism, and persons with disabilities.

Our vision

Circular economy for a resilient, food-secure future.

Our mission

Delivering environmental solutions that generate measurable outcomes and strengthen resilient livelihoods for the future.

See the impact

Core values

Five values guide the work.

  1. Bundles of vegetable seedlings laid out on sacks, ready for planting.

    Integrity

    We weigh, log and report what the work produces, and we are clear about what is measured and what is estimated.

  2. Vena, proudly holding a harvest

    Innovation

    We turn the organic waste a community throws away into compost, food and income, so nothing useful is wasted.

  3. Rock-walled garden beds and sack planters growing vegetables on the school ground.

    Stewardship

    We restore rocky, degraded and flood-prone land into fertile food gardens, and look after the soil that feeds households.

  4. Students' hands layering dry grass and soil into a compost ring.

    Collaboration

    Each cohort trains the next, and the work grows with schools, partners and funders rather than depending on us alone.

  5. A tower garden thick with chard and coriander, a Lishe Grow compost label in the planter.

    Impact

    We judge the work by outcomes that can be measured, in the food, soil and income of the households we work with.

M. M.
Founder, Lishe Grow Foundation

The founder

Built from the ground, in Kibera.

The foundation's founder started the work in Kibera in 2020, growing it from a single community cohort into a registered NGO reaching schools, households, and women's groups across Kenya, with partnerships beyond it.

The approach is shaped by the place it came from: turning thickets, rocky terrain, and degraded, previously non-arable and flood-prone land into fertile food gardens, and proving the model in some of the hardest conditions before adapting it elsewhere.

Join the work

Help us grow what's already working.

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