Sabrina Habib, first-generation Canadian, whose parents and grandparents were born in East Africa, never gets tired of repeating, every time she gets the chance, that she has won the "genetic lottery". The one that doesn't give monetary wealth, but it does give you many opportunities to do and be what you want in life. "If my parents had not emigrated, my life would have been very different", assumes Habib, who in 2014, when he was only 26 years old, founded Kidogo, which today is the largest child care network in Kenya. Centers for children from zero to five years old where they receive the care, nutrition and stimulation necessary for their proper development, while allowing their mothers to go to work with the peace of mind that they will be well taken care of. A social franchise model that already has 180 centers spread across Kenya, attended by more than 18,000 children, that keeps growing and that was born "by accident".
After graduating from university, Sabrina got a grant from the Canadian Government and the Agakan Development Network to work for a year on a primary health care project in Kenya. Stepping daily through the shantytowns of Nairobi, where 80% of the population resides, one day he visited what they call baby care there, which has nothing to do with the kindergartens of the so-called first world. "It was a place of rusty metal of about 10 m2, dark, smelly, where about twenty babies were lying on the floor without any kind of stimulation", recalls the young entrepreneur. This image, along with the absence of crying, babbling and laughter, reached his soul. “The babies were awake, but in absolute silence, no one cried because they knew that if they did, no one would pay attention to them; sometimes they gave them small doses of alcohol to make them sleepy...", recalls Habib, who at the beginning of July received the Fundació Princesa de Girona award in the international category.
"The visit left me very surprised, and at the same time angry and sad; that could have happened to me, but I soon thought that I had a social responsibility with those children", he says. There are more than 6,000 such centers in Nairobi alone, overcrowded, unlicensed and unresourced, where families pay a dollar a day to care for their children for twelve hours. "They have no choice if they want to continue working," says the co-founder and general director of Kidogo, a word that in Swahili means that all great things start small.
And with a little big purpose that was none other than to help change the lives of those children and their families, Sabrina made the reverse journey that her parents made in the 1970s. "If then they emigrated to give myself a better opportunity, I have moved to Kenya to give another one to the people who need it", says Sabrina, who does not doubt that although talent can be in many places, the opportunities, no. "Children in Kenya have the same talent as anyone else, but not the opportunities to exploit it", he says, adding that good stimulation during early childhood is important. "90% of a child's brain development takes place in the first five years of life. Those who do not have enough stimuli as children tend to drop out of school early and work in low-skilled jobs. And so the circle of poverty is perpetuated", he explains.
The other beneficiaries of the childcare network are the female carers who look after the children, whom Kidogo equips with the knowledge, skills and tools to grow their childcare micro-enterprises. A model that Habib wants to expand to other countries such as Ethiopia, Rwanda and the Congo, where education, care and health in early childhood remain seriously compromised.
