Naapu Indigenous Women Fund was born from a simple yet powerful truth: Indigenous women know what their communities need. They understand their lands, protect their cultures, and carry solutions shaped by lived experience, resilience, and deep ancestral knowledge.
For decades, Indigenous women across Kenya’s arid and semi-arid regions have organized quietly but powerfully responding to crises, defending land and water, protecting girls, sustaining livelihoods, and holding communities together. Yet despite their leadership, many remain invisible to mainstream philanthropy, excluded by formal requirements, digital barriers, and systems that rarely reach remote grassroots initiatives.
Naapu exists to change this reality.
Rooted in Trust, Guided by Women
Naapu Indigenous Women Fund is a trust-based, women-led funding basket that pools resources and re-grants directly to Indigenous women-led organizations and informal groups. Our focus is on underserved, grassroots women who are already doing meaningful work but are often overlooked because they operate outside formal structures.
Rather than imposing external agendas, Naapu listens first. We believe that solutions must grow from the ground up, shaped by the women who live the realities every day. Our role is not to direct, but to walk alongside supporting women as leaders, not beneficiaries.
From Inspiration to Action
Over the past eight years, Samburu Women Trust has mobilized resources and relationships to nurture the Naapu vision. Today, Naapu is more than a fund it is a movement rooted in dignity, self-determination, and collective care.
From Isiolo to Turkana, women supported through Naapu are working to:
• Keep girls in school
• Create safe spaces for women and girls
• Strengthen food security and livelihoods
• Protect land, water, and natural resources
• Prevent and respond to gender-based violence
• Build strong, self-organized community networks
These efforts are not abstract goals; they are daily acts of courage, resistance, and hope.
Regranting With Dignity
Naapu’s regranting approach centers respect and autonomy. Funding is provided without humiliation, excessive control, or conditions that erase women’s dignity. We recognize that accountability and trust can coexist and that when women are trusted, resources are used with care, wisdom, and impact.
Through participatory processes, Indigenous women themselves help shape funding priorities, selection criteria, and learning approaches. This ensures that the fund remains accountable to the communities it serves.
A Future Shaped by Indigenous Women
Naapu believes that when Indigenous women lead, communities thrive. When trust is centered, healing begins. And when women are free to define their own paths, futures are born.
As Naapu grows, we remain anchored in our core commitment: to restore agency, amplify voices, and resource Indigenous women to shape their own futures on their own terms.
Naapu is not just about funding projects.
It is about restoring dignity.
It is about honoring wisdom.
It is about trusting Indigenous women to lead the way.
